
Li S*~- 

Book _^ /y *? . 



SLEEP. 



£ f? 



BY 

DR. W. W. HALL, 

EDITOR OP HALL'S JOURNAL OP HEALTH, AND AUTHOR OP " BRONCHITIS AND 

KINDRED DISEASES," " CONSUMPTION," " HEALTH AND DISEASE," 

"SOLDIER HEALTH," "HEALTH TRACTS," ETC. 



FOURTH EDITION REVISED, WITH ADDITIONS. 



NEW-YORK : 
W. J. "WTDDLElTOlSr, PUBLISHER. 

1864. 




Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1860, 

By W. W. HALL, M.D., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of 
New-York. 



JOHN A. GRAY, 

Printer, Stereotyper, and Binder, 

Cor. Frankfort and Jacob Sts., 



MHE-PBOOT BUILDINGS. 



PREFACE. 



It is the aim and end of this Book to show that as a 
means of high health, good blood, and a strong mind to 
old and young, sick or well, each one should have a 
single bed in a large, clean, light room, so as to pass all 
the hours of sleep in a pure fresh air, and that those 
who fail in this, will in the end fail in health and strength 
of limb and brain, and will die while jet their days are 
not all told. 

New- York, October 23, 



SLEEP. 



SLEEPING WITH THE OLD. 

Ok a beautiful September morning in the 
year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, a note 
was found on the author's table in a hand- 
writing which was immediately recognized as 
that of a wife and mother of high culture, 
in behalf of a young sister, whom she had 
hoped would have grown up as healthful, as 
beautiful, and as accomplished as herself; but 
the lovely blossom seemed to be, fading in its 
unfolding, and the communication was a his- 
tory of the case, intended to give the physi- 
cian an idea of its nature and its needs. 
1* 



6 SLEEP. 

" Baby Bell, as we all grew up to call her, 
might have been an exquisite model for a 
baby Hebe ; so rounded, so rosy, so full of 
vivacity and health ! As I recall her child- 
ish form now, after the lapse of years, I can 
imagine nothing more beautiful in mortal 

o o 

shape. Her fair head was covered with sun- 
ny curls which dropped upon white and dim- 
pled shoulders. She was of the Saxon type, 
her eyes of the most limpid blue, ' roses 
were her cheeks, and a rose her mouth/ 
Until six years old, she retained all her 
health and beauty, when her system began 
slowly to undergo a change. Her limbs lost 
their roundness, her cheek its dainty bloom. 
Was it not strange ? She seemed well ; but 
as the next six years wore on, each succeed- 
ing day stole something of her vitality, which 
changed the once ruddy and healthful child 
into a puny, pallid, nervous girl. Yet she had 
no constitutional ailment ; no hereditary dis- 
ease ever developed itself. She never had a 
serious illness, and yet she was always ailing. 
She was troubled with nervous headaches, so 
unnatural to a child, whose perfect organism 
should have made her unconscious of the 
possession of nerves. 



THE FADING CHILD.* 7 

"She was my little sister, my darling lit- 
tle sister. I saw her at intervals during the 
lapse of six or seven years, and was always 
troubled by the unagreeable changes which 
each succeeding year wrought in her person. 
Those who were in the habit of seeing her 
daily, laughed at my expressed fears that her 
health was declining ; they said : ' She was 
growing, that was all.' Growing ! Yes ! but 
so slowly, that at twelve years she was not 
taller than the generality of children at ten, 
and not so broad across the chest as an or- 
dinary child at five; and her little puny 
arms, how slender they were; the skin on 
her temples was transparent. Growing ! Yes ! 
other children were -growing' and developing 
likewise. Chubby faces and limbs are cha- 
racteristic of childhood. Slender and delicate 
forms in children are untrue to nature, there- 
fore there must be a cause for them. The 
constant exercise and generous appetite of a 
child should secure to it well-developed mus 
cles and an abundance of pure blood. When, 
therefore, the venous fluid seems through the 
skin to be no more than mere lymph, and 
the limbs evince no muscle at all, there must 



8 SLEEP. 

be a cause, and ought to be a remedy. " What 
is it?' 7 

Special inquiry elicited the fact, that at the 
close of the fifth year, this promising child 
became possessed with the idea that she must 
sleep with an aged relative, and in failing 
health. Her whim was gratified. Time passed 
imperceptibly. The practice had become a 
habit which parental indulgence had not the 
firmness to break up. All suggestions that 
the evident failing in health and vigor and 
comeliness in the once beautiful child, was 
the result of sleeping in the same bed with 
an old person, who was evidently now sink- 
ing into the grave with an incurable disease, 
or rather a complication of ails, were re- 
garded with indifference, and the child pined 
and withered away like a flower without 
water. 

Authentic history records the following 
mournful narration: 



BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA. 9 

"Lord Clive, while a colonel in the British 
Army, commenced his career as founder of 
the British empire in India. Full of honors 
and wealth, he returned to England ; but being 
defeated in getting into Parliament, in seven- 
teen hundred and fifty -five, sailed again un- 
der the King's command for India, the Com- 
pany appointing him to the governorship of 
Port St. David. But the very day he stepped 
into the gubernatorial chair at Madras, the 
Bengal Nabob took Calcutta. Then came that 
chapter of unheard of cruelty, familiar to 
every child who has learned to read his story- 
books. The tragedy of the Black Hole oc- 
curred in seventeen hundred and fifty-six. The 
dungeon was twenty feet square. The little 
garrison thought it all a joke when they were 
ordered to go in : but to refuse was to die, for 
Surajahul Dowlak's orders must be obeyed ; 
prolonged suffering was better than instant 
death ; they entered ! one hundred and thirty- 
six in all. The door was closed, the small 
aperture admitted neither light nor air. When 
they began to exchange breaths the startling 
truth burst upon them. The air already was 
almost putrid* they shrieked, they yelled in 



10 SLEEP. 

mortal agony ; they screamed for water, and 
then killed each other over the cup which was 
passed through the grating. While the poor 
prisoners were biting and squeezing each 
other's life away, gasping for air, for water, 
for any thing that would relieve them of their 
agony, the jailers laughed and danced in 
pure delight. Holmeil, the highest in rank, 
offered the jailer heavy bribes ; but no, the 
Nabob was sleeping, and no one dared to wake 
him. In the morning, when the debauch was 
slept away, he ordered the dungeon-door to be 
opened, and out staggered twenty-three swollen, 
distorted living corpses ! One hundred and 
twenty-three were piled up, a putrefying mass 
of men ; all shapes and forms were represented 
in the death-struggle. The English woman 
who survived was sent to the harem of the 
Prince of Moorshebadad. Holmeil was saved 
and tells the tale. The dead were burned on 
the spot, but the harrowing picture did not 
move in the least the granite disposition of 
the human tiger. The horrible deed reached 
Olive, and the celebrated battle of Plassey 
showed the inhuman Nabob that it was a 
foollhardy thing to trifle with the feelings of 



DEADLY AIR. 11 

Englishmen. The soldiers fought like bull- 
dogs; revenge stimulated them, and the Na- 
bob's army of sixty thousand strong was 
broken like a reed. Clive lost but twenty- 
two men." 

At about four o'clock in the afternoon of 
Friday, in the latter part of August, eighteen 
hundred and sixty, the following distressing 
occurrence took place in Federal street, Alle- 
gheny City, Pennsylvania : ^ 

11 Alfred Bottles, William his brother, and 
James Vance, were engaged in digging a well 
in the rear of the beer-hall of Herman Hendal, 
corner of Federal street and Center alley, on a 
lot owned by John Chislett, Esq., of the Alle- 
gheny Cemetery, from whom Hendal had leased. 
The object was to drain a privy- vault, and the 
well was dug thirteen feet deep close to the vault. 
Alfred Bottles, after four o'clock, descended 
into the well by a ladder, and made a hole in 
the vault, six feet from the ground, to drain 
off the contents. When he thought the hole 
was through, he stooped to look, when the foul 
air in the vault came out, suffocated him, and 



12 SLEEP. 

he fell from the ladder to the bottom of the 
well, where the filth poured down upon him. 
Vance, seeing him fall, waited a few moments 
and followed him, but was also overcome by 
the foul gas, and fell to the bottom. William 
Bottles next went down to the assistance of 
the others, and shared the same fate. By this 
time there was a foot or more of liquid in the 
well, and those undermost, Alfred Bottles and 
Vance, were partially covered with it. At 
this juncture, John Taggart, gardener for Mr. 
Wilson, at Shousetown lane, who was in a 
store on Federal street receiving pay for some 
articles he had sold, heard of the accident and 
hastening to the spot, jumped into the well, 
to save, if possible, the lives of the three suf- 
ferers. Wm. Bottles had then been in the 
well some five minutes. Mr. Taggart was 
overcome, in like manner with the rest, by 
the gas, and fell over Wm. Bottles, forcing 
his head partially under the fluid in the well. 
" The bystanders were paralyzed, and near- 
ly all were afraid to give any assistance. But 
a young German, named William Brown, about 
twenty-five years of age, fearless of the con- 
sequences, volunteered to go down. A rope 



NATIONAL HOTEL DISEASE. 13 

was fastened around his waist and with, an- 
ther in his hand, he was let down in the well, 
and fastening a rope around the body of Tag- 
gart, he was drawn up. Brown descended a 
second, third and fourth time, and thus the 
four bodies were brought to the surface. Al- 
fred Bottles and James Yance were dead when 
taken out, and Taggart expired soon after 
being carried in a house adjacent. William 
Bottles was taken to his residence and re- 
covered." 

In the early part of the year eighteen hun- 
dred and fifty -seven, the inmates of the Na- 
tional Hotel in Washington City, the capital of 
the United States of America, were filled with 
consternation at the fact that several of their 
number were taken ill, in and about the same 
time. Reports were immediately circulated, 
that the symptoms were uniform and were 
those which ordinarily attend arsenical poison, 
to wit, severe griping pains, uncontrollable 
diarrhea, inward " burning" sensations, and 
the like. Persons were attacked under a great 
2 



14 SLEEP. 

variety of circumstances. Some were habitues 
of the Hotel ; others ate there, but slept else- 
where. Some neither ate nor slept there, but 
passed several hours of each day in the rooms 
on the ground-floor. Some were attacked 
who had slept there but a single night. A 
traveler ate a single dinner, and came near 
dying. Some persons died in a few days, 
others lingered for months and then died. 
Some lingered for years without recovering 
their wonted energy of mind and vigor of 
body. Some went to Europe in the hope of 
wearing the poison out of their systems, and 
returned the next year with but little of the 
desired improvement. Some of the first phy- 
sicians in the country gave their convictions 
in the public presses, that there could be no 
remaining doubt that all was the result of 
some mineral poison, in some way introduced 
into the food. But two simple facts were tes- 
tified to on an official investigation, and of their 
truth there was not the shadow of a doubt, 



DEADLY EMANATIONS. 15 

and could not be denied. Persons were at- 
tacked who never ate an atom or drank a drop 
on the premises. Second, not a single case 
occurred in any family living across the streets 
which bounded the Hotel, and where none of 
the members of which had visited the build- 
ing. A third fact needed no proof, that 
persons, especially some of the ladies who 
had been living at the Hotel for weeks, and 
occupied rooms in it during the time, were 
not affected at all, and yet they came down to 
the common table day after day. 

On official inquiry, it was ascertained by 
ocular demonstration, that a large sewer of 
the city opened into the cellar of the Hotel, 
and also, that the privies under the same roof 
were in an ill condition, one of them being so 
full, that when a person stepped on the floor 
of it, the matter beneath spirted up between 
the joinings of the boards. 

During the summer of eighteen hundred 
and sixty, a gentleman was traveling in 



16 SLEEP. 

Italy. As lie left Kome, lie was warned of 
tlie danger of sleeping at Baccano. He was 
told to travel all night rather tlian stop at that 
place, as a malignant fever prevailed there. 

He arrived there about bed-time. The air 
was balmy, and the accommodations inviting. 
He concluded to stop for the night. Those 
whose interests would be promoted by his 
doing so, told him there was no danger. 

He rose in the morning and proceeded on 
his journey. Some days after he had reached 
Florence the fever developed itself, and he was 
soon in his grave. 

Last summer, Signor Ardisson, now of Bal- 
timore, an exiled Eoman patriot of high culture, 
while on a visit to his friend, Kobert Earle, Esq., 
who dispenses the freest hospitalities to the 
travelled and the cultivated, at the beautiful 
Chateaux Elm Hurst, on the banks of the Hud- 
son, almost in sight of classic Sunnyside and Idle- 
wild, informed the author, on inquiries made, 
that always, when hunting in the Pontine 
marshes, it was well understood by himself and 



GEOTTA DEL CAKE. 17 

companions, that it was necessary to avoid 
hunger during their excursions, and also to 
keep up a vigorous circulation, either by ac- 
tive exercise, or mental hilarity, such as by 
singing, shouting, and slapping one another 
on the shoulders. On one occasion, when 
there was a failure of these precautions, it 
was followed in his own person by a danger- 
ous illness of several weeks' duration. 

In the celebrated Grotta Del Cane, there is 
an apartment where a man may walk with 
impunity, and yet his dog following him will 
fall down dead, and if the master lies on the 
floor, he too will die, showing the existence 
of a poisonous air near the floor. 

The argument of this book is founded on 
the narrations which have been given. Vol- 
umes of similar ones, well authenticated, might 
be easily collected, going to show that breath- 
ing an impure air for various durations, will 
occasion states of ill-health of all grades, from 
an almost imperceptible decline, to symptoms 
2* 



18 SLEEP. 

which, have the malignity of the most virulent 
and speedily fatal poisons. 

It needs no caution, generally, to keep per- 
sons from breathing an atmosphere which 
will produce certain death in a few hours or 
minutes even. But the most earnest and 
irresistible arguments have failed thus far to 
impress upon the public mind the conviction 
of the certainly destructive influences upon 
human health which follow from too many 
persons sleeping in the same room, of several 
persons sleeping in the same bed, or of a 
single person sleeping habitually in a small 
apartment. 

The plan of this book is to show the de- 
structive influence on health and life which 
bad air exercises; to state a variety of the 
causes of deterioration, among which the most 
rapid in their effects are emanations from the 
human body, and the expirations from the 
lungs; and therefore, as we spend a third of 
our existence in sleep, during which, in con- 



PURE SLEEPING- ROOMS. 19 

sequence of its passive condition, the corporeal 
system is greatly more liable to *jhe influ- 
ence of the causes of disease, it is of the 
utmost consequence that every practical and 
rational means for securing a pure air for the 
chamber should be employed, the most im- 
portant of these being large rooms and sin- 
gle beds. 

It is not only unwise, it is unnatural and 
degenerative, for one person to pass the night 
habitually in the same bed or room with an- 
other, whatever may be the age, sex, or rela- 
tionship of the parties. Unwise, because it 
impairs the general health and undermines the 
constitution, by reason of the fact, that the 
atmosphere of any ordinary chamber occupied 
by more than one sleeper, is speedily vitiated, 
and that in this vitiated condition, it is breathed 
over and over again for the space of the eight 
hours usually passed in sleep, amounting, 
in the aggregate, to one third of a man's entire 
existence. Unnatural, because it is contrary 



20 SLEEP. 

to our instincts; and it is lowering, be- 
cause it diminishes that mutual consideration 
and respect which, ought to prevail in social 
life. A person feels elevated in proportion to 
the deference received from another, and there 
springs up a self-restraint, a consciousness of 
personal dignity, which has an exalting effect 
on the whole physical, moral, and social nature 
of man ; but the habitual occupation of the 
same chamber must largely detract from these 
in a variety of ways. 

Without the argument of analogies, that the 
most spiteful, the vilest, and the filthiest of the 
animal kingdom — wolves, hogs, and vermin — 
huddle together, the physical aspects of the 
case will be considered in their bearings on 
human health. It is not denied that two per- 
sons have slept together in the same bed for 
half a century, and have lived in health to 
a good old age; this only proves how long 
some may live in spite of a single bad habit. 
Persons have lived quite as long in the habit- 



INTENT OF THE BOOK. 21 

ual indulgence in low, vicious, degrading, and 
drunken practices. It will be found, however, 
that in these cases there were counteracting 
causes in steady operation, such as open cham- 
bers, houses with a thousand cracks and cran- 
nies, and frequently during the time, the earth 
a pillow, a canopy the sky, with the additional 
fact that a large portion of every day was 
habitually spent in wholesome activities in the 
open air. To these considerations may be 
added the high advantage of a good constitu- 
tion to begin with, and the necessity of a plain 
and primitive mode of life. Exceptional cases 
are not to be considered in a general argument. 
It is proposed to show that the tendencies of 
certain .social habits are uniformly pernicious, 
and that prejudicial results will follow as cer- 
tainly as that water will fall over a precipice, if 
physical obstacles are not presented, such as 
that of its being frozen at the instant, diverted 
from its course, or caught in the beginning of 
its descent. 



22 SLEEP. 

The general argument against sleeping with 
others, is found in the undeniable fact, that 
when several persons sleep in the same apart- 
ment, the fewer conveniences are there for per- 
sonal cleanliness, which is at the very founda- 
tion of bodily health, of moral purity, and 
mental elevation. 

There is another argument of an exceedingly 
wide range, and yet a mind of very limited cul- 
ture can not fail to feel its force. As men im- 
prove in their condition, there is a strong desire 
for greater domestic conveniences and com- 
forts; the very first of these is "more room; 7 ' 
and eventually, instead of several members of 
a family sleeping in the same bed, each child, 
as it grows up, has a separate apartment, and a 
rich man's dwelling has more than one room to 
each member of his household. 

In former times, it was oftener the case than 
at present, that the married children would 
remain with their parents as a matter of econ- 
omy, for several years ; but now it is usually a 



CBOWDED LIVING. 23 

settled thing to secure a "home of their own" 
before the marriage ceremony; "going to 
housekeeping," is an event second only to the 
marriage itself, and is one of the surest indica- 
tions of thrift. 

On the other hand, as families herd together 
in the same building, there are found those 
brutal debasements which have made famous 
the "tenement-houses" of New- York, where as 
many as one hundred and twenty distinct fam- 
ilies lived under the same roof, and where there 
were thirteen thousand six hundred and twen- 
ty-three houses which averaged nearly six fam- 
ilies each, and thus three fourths of the popula- 
tion of the metropolis of the United States of 
North- America, lived in the year of grace one 
thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine, with the 
result of its being the sickliest of all the large 
cities of the civilized world; while Philadel- 
phia, but eighty-six miles away, with hotter 
summers and sometimes colder winters, without 
that proximity to the sea, which is so fruitful 



24 SLEEP. 

of sanitary blessings, is one of the healthiest 
cities in the Union. But Philadelphia has a 
house to every six persons, while New- York 
has but one to every thirteen. Such facts as 
these prove, on a large scale, that the more 
house-room a community has, the more health- 
ful will that community be. 

Another great fact is, that there are three 
times the number of deaths, in proportion to 
the population, in those parts of the city where 
the poorest, and consequently the most persons 
live together in the same house, as compared 
with the mortality where nearly every family 
lives in a dwelling of its own. For example, 
in, the First Ward of the city of New- York, 
where almost all are poor, one person died out 
of every twenty-two, while in the Fifteenth 
Ward, where the inhabitants live mostly to 
themselves, in large, roomy buildings, only 
one died out of every seventy! 

Further, in the sixteenth century, when the 
great majority of mankind lived in huts and 



CONVULSIONS OF CHILDREN. 25 

hovels, whole families eating, sleeping, and 
working in the same apartment, the average of 
human life was five years, according to the 
estimate of Marc d'Espine and others ; but in 
the former half of the nineteenth century, that 
is, from eighteen hundred to eighteen hundred 
and forty, it had increased to forty-one years. 

Nothing, perhaps, more accurately measures 
the thrift of any community than the greater 
number and size of its buildings, and the 
allowable inference is, that the more houses 
there are, in inverse proportion to the number 
of people, the further they sleep from one an- 
other, the larger the number of persons who 
tave rooms to themselves, and the more capa- 
cious are their chambers. 

The convulsions or "fits" of children usually 
occur at night, while sleeping ; these, in most 
cases, arise from over-eating or breathing an 
impure air. Fifteen hundred and ninety-nine 
children under two years of age died in New- 
York City during eighteen hundred and fifty- 
3 



26 SLEEP. 

five, from this malady alone* While bad air 
causes these convulsions, immediate introduc- 
tion to a pure atmosphere gives instantaneous- 
and efficient relief. 

The broad fact can not then be denied, that, 
as a general rule, and in the sense in question, 
the further people sleep apart, the more they 
occupy separate rooms, the greater are their 
chances of life. A more critical examination 
into the nature of things will show, in a most 
conclusive manner, the reason of such results. 

Dr. Arnott reports that a canary hung up in 
a bed surrounded with closely-drawn curtains, 
and in which two persons slept, was found dead 
in the morning. This was because that, aftei 
the sleepers had breathed the air, there was not 
life enough left in it, not oxygen enough to 
feed a bird, and it perished. This shows in a 
general way, that when the breath comes out 
of the mouth, there is no substance in it, no 
nutriment, no life, and that we can no more 
live upon it than we could live upon food 



CAPACITY OF THE LUNGS. 27 

after all its nourishment had been extracted 
from it, and it had become as immtrient as 
saw-dust, or as the driest husks of the field. 
Experimenters have ascertained that a breath 
of air is so wholly deprived of its substance, 
its life, while in the lungs, that if re-breathed 
without any admixture of the common air, it 
would cause death in a minute or two* 

The lungs of an ordinary man hold some 
ten pints of air ; but as they are never entirely 
emptied in life, they take in about six pints, 
or one gallon at a full breath. 

In the breathing of repose, as in ordinary 
occupations^ about one pint, or forty cubic 
inches, is taken in at a breath. A person 
breathes about eighteen times a minute during 
sleep, or two and a quarter hogsheads in one 
hour; or eighteen hogsheads during the eight 
hours which are usually given to sleep, or 
two hundred cubic feet ; that is, in eight 
hours, every particle of nutriment would be 
abstracted from a room containing that amount 



28 SLEEP. 

of air. To make it more tangible, if a person 
were put to sleep in a room six feet high, 
eight feet long, and a little over four feet 
broad, and no air was allowed to come in 
from without, all the life of the air would be 
consumed, and he would die at the expiration 
of the eighth hour, even if each breath given 
out could be kept to itself. But this would 
not be the case, for the very first breath of 
the first minute would, on passing out of the 
mouth, mingle with the air of the room, and 
taint and corrupt it, so that in reality, the first 
breath of air taken would be the only one that 
was pure, each succeeding one would be less 
and less so, and long before the eight hours 
had expired, the whole mass, although not 
entirely vitiated, would be so to such an extent 
that it could not possibly sustain life. All 
have observed the disagreeableness of the air 
of ah ordinary-sized room, in which one or more 
persons have slept all night, when first entering 
it from a morning walk ; and this, too, when the 



SIZE OF SLEEPING ROOMS. 29 

various crevices about the doors and windows, 
and an open fire-place, allowed some fresh air 
to come in, and some of the foul air to escape. 
With this view of the case, physiologists ad- 
vise that each person should sleep in a room 
equal to twelve feet square and eight or more 
feet high. The floor-surface of a room is mea* 
sured by the length and breadth multiplied to* 
gether. But ordinary chambers do not equal 
twelve by twelve ; do not measure a hundred 
and forty-four square feet. Not one in a thou- 
sand hotel-chambers is as large ; very few of 
the "state-rooms," so called, of ships and 
steamers, measure over seven feet long, seven 
feet high, and four broad, giving only two hun- 
dred and forty -five feet for two persons, which 
is barely enough to save one from inevitable 
death, if there were no crevices to admit the 
fresh air. 

Since, therefore, each out-breathing vitiates 
the whole body of air in a close chamber, as a 
drop of ink will discolor a glass of water, it 
3* 



30 SLEEP. 

should have a thorough, ventilation ; that is, a 
current of air should be passing through the 
room from without up through the open fire- 
place and chimney, carrying before it the bad 
air, leaving a fresher and a purer in its place. 

But very few chambers in this country mea- 
sure twelve feet square, and consequently are 
not large enough for one person, let alone two ; 
and in proportion as the room is too small, in 
such proportion are the lungs and body and 
blood deprived of their essential food, as es- 
sential to life as water is to a fish ; and in such 
proportion are sown the seeds of disease and 
premature death. 

All know that a fish can not live an hour 
out of its natural element, water ; nor can man 
live an hour out of his natural element, air, 
nor a quarter of an hour, and to both a fresh 
supply of these must come in as steadily as 
used, or harm will follow as inevitably as uni- 
versal darkness would envelop the earth, if 
the sun were blotted from existence. 



SIMOONS OF AFRICA. 31 

To show how a little taint of the atmosphere 
with a substance not natural to it will materi- 
ally influence the animal economy, it is suffi- 
cient to state a fact of repeated observation, 
that a man who sleeps near a poppy-field with 
the wind blowing steadily towards him from 
the field, will die before the morning. Intelli- 
gent readers have often perused descriptions of 
the fatal effects of the dreadful Simoons which 
sweep over the African desert, leaving whole 
caravans of beasts and men dead from the in- 
stant contact with their scalding breath. Simi- 
lar winds are also known in India. At a late 
meeting of the Meteorological Society of Lon- 
don, Dr. Cook remarked that there are certain 
days in which, however hard and violent the 
wind may blow, little or no dust accompanies 
it, while at other times every little puff of air 
or current of wind raises up and carries with it 
clouds of dust, and at these times the individ- 
ual particles of sand appear to be in such an 
electrified condition, that they are even ready 



32 SLEEP. 

to repel each, other, and are consequently dis* 
turbed from their position and carried up into 
the air with the slightest current. To so great 
an extent does this sometimes exist, that the 
atmosphere is positively filled with dust, and 
when accompanied by a strong wind, nothing 
is visible at a few yards, and the sun at noon- 
day is obscured. This condition of the atmo- 
sphere is evidently accumulative ; it increases 
by degrees till the climax is reached, when, 
after a certain time, usually about twenty-four 
hours, the atmosphere is cleared, equanimity is 
restored. Dust-columns appear under a similar 
condition of electrical disturbance or intensity. 
On calm, quiet days, when hardly a breath oi 
air is stirring, and the sun pours down his 
heating rays with full force, little circular ed- 
dies are seen to rise in the atmosphere near the 
surface of the ground. These increase in force 
and diameter, till a column is formed of great 
hight and diameter, which usually remains sta- 
tionary for some time, and then sweeps away 



SIMOONS OF INDIA. 33 

across the country at great speed, and ulti- 
mately, losing the velocity of its circular move- 
ment, dissolves and disappears. Dr. Cook had 
seen in the valley of the Mingochav, which is 
only a few miles across, and surrounded by 
high hills, on a day when not a breath of air 
stirred, twenty of these columns. These seldom 
changed their places, or but slowly moved 
across the level tract, and they never interfered 
with each other. 

The author then spoke of the Simoon, that 
deadly wind which occasionally visits the des- 
erts of Cutchee and Upper Scinde, which is 
sudden and singularly fatal in its occurrence, 
invisible, intangible, and mysterious. Its na- 
ture, alike unknown, as far as the author is 
aware, to the wild, untutored inhabitants of 
the country which it frequents, as to the Euro- 
pean man of science ; its effects only are visible, 
its presence made manifest in the sudden ex- 
tinction of life, whether of animal or vegetable, 
over which its influence has extended. Dr. 



34: SLEEP. 

Cook gives the results of his information re- 
specting the Simoon as follows : 

1. It is sudden in its attack. 

2. It is sometimes preceded by a cold cur- 
rent of air. 

3. It occurs in the hot months — usually 
June and July. 

4. It takes place by night as well as by day. 

5. Its course is straight and defined. 

6. Its passage leaves a narrow " knife-like" 
track. 

7. It burns up or destroys the vitality of 
animal and vegetable existence in its path. 

8. It is attended by a well-marked sul- 
phurous odor. 

9. It is described as being like the blast of 
a furnace, and the current of air in which it 
passes is evidently greatly heated. 

10. It is not accompanied by dust, thunder, 
and lightning. 

It is so generally known to be fatal to travel- 
ers to pass the night in the campagna in Italy, 



ROBBERS AND CARPENTER. 35 

that citizens uniformly caution strangers to 
pass directly through it. And nearer home it 
is known that it was considered almost certain 
death for those crossing the Isthmus of Pana- 
ma to spend a night there, and sailors were 
threatened with severe punishment who did 
not return to their ships in the offing before 
the night came on. 

Dr. E. Y. Eobbins says of Professor Carpen- 
ter, the first physiologist of Great Britain, if 
not of the world, that, in his experiments, he 
"had ascertained that air containing five or 
six per cent of carbonic acid gas would pro- 
duce immediate death, and that less than one 
half that quantity would soon prove fatal. 
Now, if effects are proportioned to their causes, 
and if an atmosphere impregnated with five 
per cent, or one twentieth part of its volume, 
of carbonic acid, will thus produce death in a 
few minutes, what must be the probable effect 
of breathing for twenty or forty years, even 
the much minuter proportions which must be 



36 SLEEP. 

present in every inhabited room where there 
is not a constant ingress and egress of air? 
It must lower the standard of health and 
shorten the duration of life. But not only is 
the air in a close room thus constantly being 
impregnated with carbonic acid gas to the 
amount of about twenty- eight cubic inches per 
minute for each adult man occupying such 
room, but there is also, according to the best 
authorities, constantly being discharged by the 
lungs and pores of the skin an equal amount 
by weight, that is, about three or three and a 
half pounds in twenty -four hours, of effete, 
decaying animal substance, in the form of 
insensible vapor, which we often see condensed 
in drops upon the windows of crowded rooms 
and railroad cars. These drops, if collected 
and evaporated, leave a thick putrid mass of 
animal matter. The breathing of these exha- 
lations is believed to be quite as efficient in 
producing disease as carbonic acid itself. 

In the winter of eighteen hundred and 
sixty, in one small, ill-ventilated room in 



CHARCOAL FUMES FATAL. 37 

a house at High Blantyre, Scotland, a man 
named Kobertson, his wife, and three child- 
ren were in the habit of sleeping. One 
morning the wife awoke about five o'clock 
in a very exhausted state, and found her 
infant child, aged nine months, lying dead 
in her arms. She immediately aroused her 
husband, who also felt in a weakly condition, 
but had strength enough to get out of bed. 
They then discovered that their next eldest 
child, a boy aged about three years, was also 
dead, and the third, a girl nine years old, ap- 
parently dying, but upon being removed into 
another apartment she eventually recovered. 
Facts like these show that breathing a bad 
air for a single night is perilous to life. Few 
are so ignorant as ,not to have learned that if 
a handful of charcoal is lighted in a small, 
close room, death before the morning is an in- 
evitable result, hence it is used sometimes as 
a means of self-destruction. The reason is, that 
charcoal in burning, subtracts the oxygen from 
4 



38 SLEEP. 

the whole body of the atmosphere, and this 
oxygen is its life, and is as fully used up in 
breathing as in the burning of charcoal. It is 
not actually destroyed in either case, but a new 
combination is formed called carbonic acid, 
which has no oxygen, no life, and a single 
breath of it induces instantaneous suffocation. 
It is this carbonic acid which taints a sleeper's 
chamber, and the taint increases at every out- 
breathing, for every expiration is loaded with 
it, and where two sleep in the same room the 
poisonous vitiation increases with a two-fold 
rapidity, and the unhealthful results are inevi- 
table and ruinous. To impress these vital 
lessons on the mind, the philosophy of breath- 
ing or respiration, should be understood. 

The object of breathing is to make a change 
in the condition of the blood, which is said in 
the sacred Scriptures, with philosophical ac- 
curacy, to be " the life of a man." It is suf- 
ficiently precise, for all practical purposes, to 
say that a man takes into the lungs in twenty- 



OFFICE OF THE LUNGS. 39 

four hours, about sixty hogsheads of air, as in 
health he breathes about eighteen times in a 
minute, on an average, for the twenty-four 
hours, and takes in about a pint or forty cubic 
inches at a breath. During the same time, 
there passes through the lungs an amount of 
blood equal to twenty-four hogsheads ; with 
this blood, the sixty hogsheads of air come in 
virtual contact, and a great change takes place 
in both the blood and the air ; for the oxygen, 
the life of the air, is taken from it as such, 
and becomes, in a measure, incorporated with 
the blood so as to give life to it ; at the same 
time, the impurities of the blood are taken up 
by the breath of air just taken into the lungs, 
so that when expired, when passed out of 
the lungs, it is so loaded with these impurities, 
that it is utterly unfit for being breathed again ; 
so much so, that as has been already stated, 
if re-breathed, without the admixture of some 
fresh air, it would cause an instantaneous de- 
struction of life, from its entire destitution of 



40 SLEEP. 

nutritious particles. Each breath, of air then, 
in healthful respiration, goes into the lungs 
perfectly pure, but comes out, loaded with the 
impurities of the blood, and thus the blood 
is purified, made fit to be re-distributed over 
the body, to impart life, renovation and growth. 
It is easy to see then, that if the air which 
is breathed is not pure, it fails to unload the 
blood of its impurities, and hence it is unfit 
for the purposes of life; for to purify the 
blood, is to give health to the whole system ; 
and when it is not purified, disease and pain 
and ultimate death are the inevitable results. 
This, then, is the great physical evil of sleep- 
ing together, the air is rapidly contaminated 
by two sleepers in any ordinary room; this 
contamination begins at once to lay the foun- 
dation for disease, and that result is inevitable 
in the very nature of things. Such result, 
however, does not become very marked in a 
short time, as there are counteracting agencies, 
such as the fact that there are crevices in the 



BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA. 41 

doors and windows, and through these some 
fresh air is constantly passing; small, it is 
true, yet enough to keep the body alive ; but 
how more dead than alive many a one feels 
without any suspicion of the cause, in that 
exceedingly languid sensation which some- 
times pervades the whole body on first waking 
up in the morning; a little greater depriva 
tion, and the sleepers would have waked no 
more ! In the case of the already narrated 
tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta, it may 
be well to state, that "It was eight o'clock in 
the morning, when the unfortunate prisoners 
were locked up, and in less than three hours, 
fifty of them had ceased to exist. The sur 
vivors of the next morning were said to be 
the ghastliest forms that were ever seen alive. 
But for two small windows for approach to 
which, there was through the night a frantic 
struggle, not one would have lived to tell the 
fearful tale." 

Another more recent incident of Indian 
4* 



42 SLEEP. 

history, is given to illustrate the pernicious 
influence of a deficient supply of fresh air, 
although not to the degree of causing instant 
death. When Sir Charles Napier was the 
Commander-in-Chief of the Indian army, the 
hill-stations of Sabathor and Kussowlie, which 
ought, from their position, to have been most 
healthy, were in disgrace, and denounced as 
pestilential. Sir Charles resolved to ascertain 
the cause of the mischief, and had no difficulty 
in accounting for the pestilence which had 
destroyed so many lives. 

The barrack-rooms were only eight feet 
high and had been crammed full of soldiers. 
" I altered the barracks," said Sir Charles, 
" and put half the number of men in them, 
and they became at once the most healthy in 
India. When I last saw my own regiment 
with which I made the experiment, in con- 
junction with the L Sixtieth Kifles,' both hav- 
ing been nearly decimated by fever, the twen- 
ty-second had but nineteen in hospitals, out 



PEISOK ATMOSPHERE. 43 

of one thousand and fifty, in the sick season, 
and the sixtieth about the same." 

In the times of Pope and Swift, the Au 
gustan age of England, a little over a cen- 
tury ago, " debtors and pirates were confined 
together in the Marshalsea. Thirty, forty, and 
even fifty prisoners were locked up at night 
in a single room, not sixteen feet square and 
eight feet high. For a whole year, there were 
sometimes forty, never less than thirty-two, 
persons locked up in George's ward every 
night, which is a room sixteen by fourteen 
feet, and about eight feet high. The surface 
floor was not sufficient to contain that num- 
ber when laid down, so that one half were 
hung up in hammocks, while the others re- 
mained on the floor under them. The air 
was so wasted by the number of persons who 
breathed in that narrow compass, that it was 
not sufficient to keep them from stifling, sev- 
eral having, in the heat of summer, perished 
for want of air. The more offensive part of 



4A SLEEP. 

the account is omitted, but it may be foun<3 
entire in the state papers of England." 

John Howard, of immortal memory, found 
that there were dungeons in Cornwall, mea- 
suring seven and a half feet long, six and a 
half deep, and five feet broad, in which "two 
or three persons were chained together. Their 
provision was put down to them through a 
hole in the floor of the room above, and the 
foulness of the air coming up through that hole 
was such, that those who thus served the 
food often caught the fatal fever, and the 
keeper and his wife died in one night." 

Other dungeons containing about four hun- 
dred cubic feet of air, measuring seven and a 
half feet long, by six and a half broad, and 
eight and a half high, had only a hole of 
four inches by eight, over the door, the only 
avenue of air to the interior, and even that 
coming through long, dark passages reeking 
with dampness and filth and slime. " Yet, in 
each of these dungeons, three human beings 



HOWARD, THE PHILANTHROPIST. 45 

were commonly locked up for the night, which, 
in winter, lasted fourteen or sixteen hours." 

In Chester there were cells measuring nine 
feet by three, and seven and a half feet high, 
with a single aperture of four inches by eight. 
In each of these, three or four felons were 
locked up every night. 

In the Chink of Plymouth jail, there was 
a "diabolical dungeon, " eight feet by seven- 
teen, and only five and a half feet high, with 
a wicket in the door seven inches by five. 
Yet Howard learned with horror, that three 
men had been confined in this dungeon for 
two months. "They could neither see nor 
breathe freely, nor could they stand upright. 
To keep alive at all they were forced to 
crouch, each in his turn, at the wicket, to 
catch a few inspirations of air, otherwise, they 
must have died of suffocation, for the door 
had not been opened in five weeks." 

No wonder is it, that with siich arrange- 
ments, the jail-fever raged throughout Eng- 



46 SLEEP. 

land, slaying tens of thousands in its fury, 
spreading its terrible contagions in such, a 
deadly manner, that the prison-physicians 
would not engage their services in some cases, 
without the express understanding, that they 
should not be required to visit persons who 
had the jail-fever. 

These cases show that a certain amount of 
fresh air is necessary to life, and that if that 
amount is largely curtailed, fearful diseases 
and speedy death ensue. If there is but a 
moderate diminution, as in sleeping together 
in small rooms, the consequences are not in- 
stantly fatal, but the life of the system is 
slowly undermined, predisposing it to wast- 
ing disease. 

But why need the dark and dismal dun- 
geons of England, a hundred years ago, be 
cited for proof ? On the fifth day of October, 
eighteen hundred and sixty, Judge Pierrepont, 
of the Superior Court of the city of New- York, 
resigned his seat on the bench, which, by his 



RANDALL'S ISLAKD IMBECILES. 47 

ability he had ornamented so long, on the 
ground that the court-rooms were " ruinous 
to health and dangerous to life," and during 
the same week a correspondent of the New- 
York World, having visited KandalTs Island 
where there are about eight hundred idiotic 
children maintained by public charity, says: 

" ' In a single room, perhaps eighteen by 
twenty-eight feet in area, I found thirty -seven 
imbecile children seated closely together upon 
benches and chairs arranged around the room 
— some rocking themselves incessantly to and 
fro, some screaming at the top of their voices, 
some yelling out a laugh, itself the token of a 
vacant mind, others moaned and muttered, or 
emitted an unearthly noise, intended for music. 
Here they chattered and quarreled, and grinned 
their ghastly smiles, seemiogly under little re- 
straint other than might be needed to keep 
them glued to one spot.' " 

•It is further stated that, "-this room also is 
unclean and noisome ; the floor reeks with a 
nauseating stench ; the air is loathsomely pu- 
trid, poisoning the l breath of life,' which the 



48 SLEEP. 

inmates take impure, only to give back im- 
purer; scrofulous sores saturate their clothing 
by their purulent issues. What a horrible 
picture this is ! What a fearful condition these 
helpless and miserable children are now in! 
How long is it to be protracted? How long 
shall they be permitted to suffer, languish, and 
die, when it is possible to make most of them 
useful persons in society, and to afford relief 
to all of them, at least? How long shall a 
gentleman — James B. Eichards — who has made 
the treatment of imbeciles a specialty, with the 
utmost success, beg the Commissioners to give 
him a chance to redeem these wretched and 
most unfortunate children, without expense as 
regards his time and labor ? For the sake of 
our character as a Christian people, whose wel- 
come duties are philanthropy and active bene- 
volence, as well as for the sake of the suffer- 
ing children, it is to be hoped that the reform 
is not far off — that the beneficent agencies may 
soon be put in operation that shall consummate 
this humane work." 

Breathing a bad air for a very few days may 
introduce a poison into the system which shall 



INSIDIOUS AIR POISON. 49 

so impregnate it that no amount of subsequent 
exposure to a pure atmosphere will avail to 
arrest its malignant and fatal influences, al- 
though months and years have passed away 
since the occurrence of the infection. On 
Friday, June twenty-four, eighteen hundred 
and fifty-nine, the telegraph announced that 
the " Hon. D. F. Eobison, ex-member of Con- 
gress died from a disease contracted at the 
National Hotel in the spring of eighteen hun- 
dred and fifty-seven." The circumstances con- 
nected with this affair have already been de- 
tailed, among which it may be important to 
repeat, it appeared in evidence that persons 
who slept in the hotel a single night were 
attacked so seriously that their lives for a time 
seemed to be endangered. 

It has now been shown that a single sleeper 

requires a chamber twelve feet square, and well 

ventilated by having currents of air constantly 

passing from the crevices, aboxit the doors and 

5 



50 SLEEP. 

windows, up through, the fire-place and chim- 
ney, carrying with it the foul, exhausted air. 
But a majority of sleeping-rooms do not have a 
length and breadth which, when multiplied 
into each other, will give a superfices of a hun- 
dred and forty-four square feet, and }^et not 
one, but the father and mother, and for a long 
period of married life, a child also, sleep in 
such room ; and more, all three in the same 
bed, to say nothing of the space occupied by 
the furniture and clothing hanging around, nor 
of the sources of contamination of the air of 
the apartment, such as the toilet apparatus, 
wash- water, and other standing fluids. Under 
these circumstances, it seems to be little short 
of a murderous process for more than one per- 
son to sleep in a chamber of ordinary size. 
But when it is remembered that two and three 
and even more persons often sleep habitually in 
rooms less than twelve feet square, and when 
we take into account the harrowing details of 
the Black Hole of Calcutta, it must be ad- 



STINT OF PURE AIR. 51 

mitted that sleeping together as a habit, is a 
sufficient cause for a gradual diminution of 
bodily vigor, a gradual undermining of the 
constitution, and an inevitable cause of prema- 
ture decline and death to multitudes. 

If ordinary chambers are* but equal to 
twelve feet square, and that is barely enough 
for one sleeper, and it is the common custom for 
two at least to occupy such a room, we have 
the general fact of a world of people . volun- 
tarily allotting to themselves just one half of 
the requisite amount of air during every night 
of their existence, by which their blood is just 
half purified, their systems just half washed 
out, just half renovated! No wonder then 
that there is that earnest craving for more sleep 
in the morning on the part of the frail and fee- 
ble, and of those who violate the laws of their 
being, in the manner pointed out. 

This is not all. If two married persons give 
themselves but half the needed amount of air 
for eight hours, and during those eight hours 



52 SLEEP. 

and at tlie close of them, as is most generally 
the case perhaps, a new being is made, it is 
inevitable that it will be made in weakness, in 
imperfection, in incompleteness ; hence is born 
deteriorated, with a hereditary susceptibility to 
disease, and with an incompetency to resist the 
ordinary causes of human ailments. Thus it is 
that the children of large cities, especially in 
summer time, when the entire air has so much 
less nutriment in it than is normal, are swept 
away as if by a pestilence ; a pestilence more 
terrible than any epidemical cholera that ever 
visited our shores ; and yet it creates no alarm, 
seldom a remark I 

According to Inspector Morton's returns for 
eighteen hundred and fifty-five, there died in 
New- York City during July and August, under 
five years of age, three thousand seven hun- 
dred and two children; more than the total 
number of deaths from cholera during the pre- 
ceding year ; more than died of the first chol- 
era of eighteen hundred and thirty-two ! These 



INFANT MOBTALITY. 53 

figures are found in the exceedingly valuable 
" Table of the Mortality of the City of New- 
York for the fifty-two years, comprising the 
full period from January the first, eighteen 
hundred and four, to December the first, 
eighteen hundred and fifty -five, inclusive." 

Total cholera deaths in New-York City for 1832 3513 

" " " 1849 5071 

" " " 1854.... .2509 

" deaths of children alone during July 

and August 1855 3702 

Many are now living who have a vivid re- 
membrance of the terror pervading all hearts 
during the prevalence of the first cholera, and 
yet when a gHater number of children die 
during two months of any summer, it is passed 
without special remark. This is because in part 
we have become used to it ; and in part be- 
cause the greatest mortality is among the 
crowded poor, whose wailings rise not up to 
the ears of the great world above them. It is 
5* 



54 SLEEP. 

not claimed that this fearful annual mortality 
among children under five years of age is 
wholly owing to the fact of too many persons 
sleeping together in the same room or bed ; but 
that, under all the circumstances of the case, as 
presented, this great sacrifice of life is attribu- 
table, in considerable part, to the habit alluded 
to, there can be not a shadow of a doubt in any 
reflecting mind. 

Let it be remembered that there is a double 
agency at work in this regard. The children 
are not only begotten in weakness, in want 
of vitality and vigor, but the causes of this 
are still in operation as to themselves ; for very 
generally the infant sleeps in the same bed 
with the parents, and if a bird^ actually dies in 
a night under the circumstances already de- 
tailed, it is no wonder that the bird-like life 
of a tender infant is gradually sapped away 
by the same causes kept in operation every 
night for weeks and months and years ; for 
it is not sooner than five years that children 



CAUSES OF VITIATED CHAMBERS. 55 

in poorer families — and they are the majority 
— are put in other rooms than those in which 
the parents sleep; but after five years, the 
mortality of children diminishes fifty per cent. 
Our calculations have been made on the 
purity of the air in the twelve-feet chambers, 
yet the causes of- rapid vitiation of that atmo- 
sphere are numerous. There are liquids of 
various kinds in every chamber, besides the 
soap for washing, which is constantly sending 
out its emanations ; and there are damp towels 
and bedding, combs and brushes, and the 
clothing worn during the day, which, as to 
some persons, is alone sufficient to taint the 
air of a whole room in five minutes after it 
is laid off. Besides these, if inner doors are 
left open during the night, emanations from 
close cellars and warm kitchens, and slops of 
various kinds, are constantly ascending, espe- 
cially during sleeping-hours ; for then the outer 
doors and windows are closed, no air is in 
circulation to carrv them outside the build- 



56 SLEEP. 

ing; hence they rise, by their own laws, to 
taint and corrupt the atmosphere of the sleep- 
er's apartment. 

Then again, there are found in most cham- 
bers, hung-up clothing, closets, wardrobes, 
drawers, and the like, with the carpeting, all 
of which are sources of dust and lint, and 
dampness and close air, so that, taking every 
thing into consideration, it is an almost un- 
known thing that any sleeper within the four . 
walls of any private house or hotel, gets one 
single breath of real pure air in a whole night. 

In the third volume of HalVs Journal of 
Health, page one hundred and forty-nine, the 
following statements are made, founded on 
carefully conducted experiments in one of 
the best-kept European hospitals : 

" If a small portion of the air of a crowded 
room is made to pass up through distilled water, 
a sediment is left which contains various colored 
fibers of clothing, portions of hair, wool, bits 
of human skin or scales, and a fungus growth, 



AIR OF CROWDED ROOMS. 57 

with its particles of reproduction, which adhere 
wherever they strike, or fall on wet surfaces or 
bruises, or sore places, and grow wherever they 
adhere ; there is also a small amount of hide 
structible sand and dirt, with great numbers of 
the forms of animal life. 

u But if that room be emptied for a few 
hours, and a portion of its atmosphere be treated 
in the same way, nothing will be found but a 
little sand and dirt, a few fibers of woven cot- 
ton, and only a trace of fungus ; but no animal 
life, no bits of skin or hair, or scales of dead 
human matter. 

"If five times the amount of neighboring out- 
door air undergoes the same process, a single 
fiber of wool or cotton is now and then found, 
with a few specimens of fungus, and their atoms 
of reproduction, but no traces of decayed ani- 
mal matter, nor are there any signs of organic 
life : thus showing that in our close apartments 
we are surrounded with organic living bodies, 
and that animal matter, living, dead, and de- 
cayed, loads the atmosphere which we breathe 
in the chambers of our dwellings and crowded 
rooms, and that these corrupting particles are 
swallowed into the stomach, and are breathed 



58 SLEEP. 

into the lungs every moment of in-door exist- 
ence, thus strongly urging us, by all our love 
of pure blood and high health, to hurry from 
our chambers at the earliest moment in the 
morning, and to consider every hour of out- 
door breathing a gain of life. 

"No wonder is it that the blood is soon 
tainted and corrupted, by making sitting-apart- 
ments of our chambers, by spending hours in 
crowded assemblies, or stage-coaches, or rail- 
cars, where every breath we draw is a mouth- 
ful of monster-life, or of decaying or foreign 
substances." 

But with all our precautions, foreign sub- 
stances are floating in the air every where. 
Dust falls on the tops of the highest moun- 
tains, and drops on the decks of vessels many 
leagues beyond the shore. Under the head 
of Micographie Atmospherique, the Gazette Heb~ 
dom, dated April 1st, 1859, reports a meet- 
ing of the French Academy of Sciences, at 
which M". Pouchet reported a paper as follows : 

" The atmosphere which surrounds us holds 



BUST OF ALL CENTURIES. 59 

in suspension a mass of corpuscles, the detritus 
of the mineral crust of our globe, animal and 
vegetable particles, and the debris of all that is 
used for man's purposes. These diverse cor- 
puscles are proportionably more numerous and 
voluminous as the atmosphere is more or less 
agitated by the wind, and it is to these that the 
term dust has been applied." 

The author enumerates the various cor- 
puscles of mineral, animal, and vegetable ori- 
gin with which the air is loaded. Under the 
latter — the vegetable products — he mentions 
especially particles of wheat, which are always 
found mixed with dust, be it recent or old, 
as well as those of barley, rye, potatoes, which 
have been discovered in rare instances. 

" Astonished at the proportional abundance 
of flour which I have found among the atmo- 
spheric corpuscles," says Mr. Pouchet, "I un- 
dertook the task to examine the dust of all cen- 
turies and of all localities. I have explored 
the monuments of our large cities ; those of 
the shore and those of the desert ; and in midst 



60 SLEEP. 

of the immense variety of corpuscles that uni- 
versally float in the air, almost always have I 
found the dust of grain, in greater or lesser 
abundance. Endowed with an extraordinary 
power of preservation, years seem scarcely to 
have altered it. 

" Whatever may be the antiquity of atmo- 
spheric corpuscles, we find among them the 
dust of grain yet recognizable. I have dis- 
covered it in the most inaccessible retreats of 
our old Gothic churches, mixed with their 
blackened dust of eight centuries ; I have met 
it in the palaces and hypogees of Thebes, where 
it dates back perhaps to the epoch of the Pha- 
raohs. I have found it even in the interior of 
the tympanal cavity of the head of a mummi- 
fied dog, which I have recovered from a sub- 
terranean temple of upper Egypt. 

14 It can be proposed as a thesis, that in all 
countries where wheat forms the basis of food, 
its debris is mixed throughout with the dust, 
and may be detected in it in laiger or smaller 
quantities." 

Perhaps the reader will pardon the quota- 
tion of an article entire, written by some un- 



DUST EVERY WHERE. 61 

acknowledged worker for human entertain- 
ment and profit : 

" "Whence does the dust all come ? You may 
sweep your room twice every day, and you 
will find that a cloud arises every time the 
broom and the floor make acquaintance. You 
may dust every article of furniture, every book, 
every picture; you may wipe all about the 
book-shelves and the floor with a damp cloth ; 
and yet, after all your labor, there will be dust. 
Dust flying in the air; dust settling on the 
books and tables ; dust on the pictures, on the 
flowers — ■ dust, dust every where. It is dis- 
couraging. You think, perhaps, that 'tis be- 
cause the room in which you sit is so large ; 
you think that if you were in snugger quarters 
there would not be so much of this annoyance ; 
you therefore move into a smaller apartment, 
but you are worse off now than you were be- 
fore. You can't turn around quick, nor even 
heave a sigh, without setting in motion ten 
thousand tiny particles of dust. You may 
sweep till your broom fails, and dust till your 
arms fall off, and the story will be always the 

6 



62 SLEEP. 

same. Even out at sea, where the good ship 
rides the billows, thousands of miles from land, 
the dust gathers. It matters not how much the 
sailors rub the masts and holystone the decks, 
the dust will gather, even amid the salt spray 
of the sea. It is forever flying and settling 
wherever there is any solid substance on which 
it can alight. "Where it comes from is no mys- 
tery, when we remember what sort of things 
we are. 

"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return" 
is written on clothing, on wood, and iron and 
steel, just as truly as it is in our frail, perishing 
flesh ; and this changing and going back to 
its despised original is going on before our very 
eyes, in each thing that we look upon. Con- 
stantly — some rapidly, others with a slower 
waste — but certainly all things are returning 
whence they came. 'Tis enough to make one 
fear the dust — to make one feel a horror at the 
atoms falling on one's garment and one's limbs, 
to read and understand their language. That 
language is one of decay and death ; of earth, 
the grave, and worms; of darkness, forgetful- 
ness, and despair. This, if one can not look 



DUST AND CONSUMPTION. 63 

beyond the dust, and see and take hold upon 
the eternal life. 

" How carefully and purely should we step 
through the world, did we but read, as we 
walk, all that is written for our admonition 
and warning. But we go hastily, with care- 
less eye and dumb heart, taking little heed 
when we should be most studious. Many 
there be who have deep skill to read the dark 
sayings who yet have never understood the 
plain language of the gathering dust." 

Under the head of " Analytical and Critical 
Reviews," in the British and Foreign Me- 
dico Chirurgicdl Review for January, eigh- 
teen hundred and fifty-nine, is the following: 
"The fact seems to come out strikingly in 
these investigations, that one marked indubi- 
table cause of lung diseases, and especially 
of consumption, is the inhalation of fine hard 
dust. This seems to be the case in Warwick- 
shire, especially where the metallic manufac- 
tures are of a kind t:> give rise to such dust, 



64: SLEEP. 

more than where the work is of a coarser de- 
scription. The same fact is observed where 
fine pottery is made ; it is well known in the 
hardware manufactures of Yorkshire, and the 
mortality of mines where the ore lies in dry 
sandstone, is said to be from the same cause. 

" On the other hand, where the dust inhaled 
is of a soft character, as in woolen, flax and 
cotton factories, asthma and chronic bronchitis 
are more prevalent, as also in lace -making 
and straw-bonnet making." 

Alston, England,is situated in a most salu- 
brious country district, yet there are more 
widows there than in any other district in Great 
Britain ; at the same time, fewer infants die in 
Alston than in many other parts of the country. 
The actual facts of the case fnake this a very 
suggestive item in connection with the dele- 
terious influences of an atmosphere loaded with 
foreign particles. Alston is the most exclu- 
sively lead-mining district in England, but only 



INHERITED INFIRMITIES. 65 

the men work in these mines, where they are 
constantly breathing a dusty atmosphere, hence 
their early decease. 

But it is remarked that more women die 
of consumption in the healthy atmosphere of 
Alston, than in other localities which do not 
enjoy so pure an air. This is accounted for 
as "due to acquired hereditary tendency,' J 
those women having been born of men who 
breathed habitually a dusty atmosphere, bring- 
ing to the mind the strong conviction of the 
sentiment uttered on a preceding page, that 
children begotten by persons sleeping together 
in the same small room for eight hours out of 
every twenty -four, must inevitably partake of 
the parental infirmity, which, not enough to kill 
the parent outright, not enough to destroy the 
power of reproduction, not enough to eat out 
the life of the new-born in its first years, yet 
is enough to lay the foundation, either of 
actual disease or of feeble capabilities of re- 
sisting the ordinary causes of disease, with 
6* 



66 SLEEP. 

the result of becoming life-long martyrs to 
depressing and wasting sickness, to end in 
premature death. These are facts collected 
by men of ability, of industrious research; 
facts gathered with reference to the discussion 
of theories of a different nature, hence are the 
more valuable ; and those not convinced by 
these would not likely be by the piling up of 
pyramids of such like. 

The great difficulty in having these state- 
ments result in immediately practical results, 
lies in this, that death does not presently follow 
from two persons sleeping together all night 
in the same bed or room. Were this the case, 
the task were easily performed, and a few 
pages would tell the whole story. But most 
assuredly, wise men, of pecuniary ability, are 
most inexcusable if they do not arrange in 
all their families, that each member have, as 
far as possible, a separate, airy room, to 
sleep in. 

The fact has been already stated, that one of 



ROOMINESS AND HEALTH. 67 

the very first channels of expenditure, on 
the part of those who are improving their pe- 
cuniary condition, is in the direction of more 
house-room; and this may reasonably be con- 
sidered, at least, one of the causes of the undis- 
puted fact, that in France, the average life of 
those who are well to do, is twelve years 
longer, than of those who are considered poor, 
and consequently huddle together more, and 
are restricted to fewer apartments. 

It is true, as has been remarked on a pre- 
vious page, that there are multitudes who have 
slept two and three in a bed, and double the 
number in the same room, and yet have lived 
to a good old age. But such persons generally 
live in very open houses, and spend most of 
the twenty-four hours in the open air, in neces- 
sary labor, and these act as counteracting 
causes. But this argument is of little weight, 
inasmuch as the constitution of these hardy 
people, seldom, with all its strength and advan- 
tages, descends to their children, rarely indeed 



68 SLEEP. 

to their grand-children ; and that their close 
living has a tendency to deteriorate the vigor 
of their descendants, can not reasonably be de- 
nied. 

As communities become enriched, their 
modes of life grow more enervating ; hence the 
necessity increases of greater care to ward off 
disease, of removing its causes, and of guarding 
against the avenues of sickness. What our 
fathers did with their stalwart frames and iron 
constitutions, and simple, temperate and regu- 
lar modes of life, we attempt at our peril, with 
our easy, gormandizing, pampered ways, our 
furnace-heated apartments, and our dwellings, 
three rooms deep, with chambers all guiltless 
of a window, with curtained apartments as 
gloomy as the grave, and into which the bless- 
ed sun-light never enters, except on chance oc- 
casions, few and far between. Hence, if our 
motto be, " As our fathers lived, so will we," 
we will not live long; we will perish in our 



BODY EMANATIONS. 69 

folly, and if we leave descendants behind us, 
they will be but shadows, the mere outlines of 
men and women. 

All know that emanations are constantly 
passing from the body, its impurities, its dead 
and effete matter, which nature has no use for, 
and which she is constantly endeavoring to cast 
off by the pores of the skin, the average num- 
ber of which for each square inch of the body 
is estimated by Erasmus Wilson to be two 
thousand five hundred, or seven millions in all, 
making, if joined together, a canal twenty- 
eight miles long, which, conducts from the sys- 
tem every twenty -four hours, in a state of sen- 
sible perspiration, or water called " sweat," or 
insensible perspiration, called " vapor," three 
pounds and a half from one person in the ordi- 
nary occupations of life, and much more in 
extraordinary callings. For example, men 
employed in keeping up the fires in the gas- 
works, were found to have lost in weight, on 
an average, over three pounds in forty-five 



70 SLEEP. 

minutes, while some, in an "unusually hot place, 
lost as much as five joounds two ounces in 
seventy minutes' work. 

The insensible perspiration from a sle.eper 
during the night, is of itself enough to taint 
the atmosphere of a whole room, even a large 
one, as almost every reader has noticed on 
entering a sleeping-chamber in the morning 
after having come directly from the out-door 
air ; and it is the breathing and rebreathing of 
an atmosphere contaminated in the variety of 
ways alluded to, which makes fhe night the 
time of attack of the great majority of violent 
human ailments ; it is this which fires the train 
of impending disease, and which would have 
been deferred, if not entirely warded off, with 
the advantages of a pure chamber. It is from 
close bed-rooms come the racking pains of 
fever, its torturing thirst, and speedy death ; 
this it is which wakes up the cholera morbus, 
the cramp colic, the bilious diarrhea, and the 
multitudes of other ailments which surprise us 



HUMAN EFFLUVIA. 71 

in the night-time, and from which, it is worthy 
of repetition, a night of good sleep in a clean, 
pure, and well- ventilated chamber would have 
effected a happy deliverance, as expressed in 
the familiar phrase of " sleeping it off." 

It is related that a whole family was once 
suffering from sickness which no skill of the 
physician could abate, when accidentally a win- 
dow-glass was broken out, and the means not 
being at hand for repair, the entire family 
began to get well ; the cause of the improve- 
ment was at once suggested to be the broken 
pane, which admitted a purer air. 

It is not known as extensively as it ought to 
be, that if the effluvia which escapes from the 
human body in a close room, is breathed by 
another person, some of the most incurable 
forms of disease result therefrom, especially the 
"low fevers," as they are called, as well as 
" typhoid" ailments, which oppress the whole 
man, putrefy the blood, take away all sense 
and feeling, when muttering delirium comes 



72 SLEEP. 

on, to be followed apace by a mortal stupor* 
and the man passes away, but " makes no 
sign. 5 ' All must look upon suck a deatk with 
shrinking, and yet it is frequent in the abodes 
of the poor, whom hard necessity compels to 
huddle together like pigs in a pen. Lesser de- 
grees of this crowding together will have a 
proportionate ill effect, without the possibility 
of avoidance. The whelming avalanche does 
not the less come because its motion is not at 
first perceivable, and as inevitably will come 
the destructive effects of crowded sleeping 
apartments, not only curtailing the health and 
vigor and life of the sleepers themselves, but in 
perpetuating human infirmity on the innocent 
ones to whom being is given under the circum- 
stances. 

The high moral effect of each member of a 
family occupying separate chambers, will be 
least contravened by those who know most of 
human nature. There is great practical truth 
in the saying that M No man is a hero to his 



DEMORALIZATION OF CROWDING. 73 

valet" ""All men," said the first Napoleon, 
"lose on close view." Proofs of this are con- 
stantly recurring to the observation of the 
thoughtful. Hence there must be a greater or 
less depreciatory effect in the close associations 
of "bed-fellows." Those who, by humanity 
or self-interest, or in the discharge of official 
duty, have become familiar with persons living 
in crowds, have frequently given their testi- 
mony to the moral debasements, social, physi- 
cal, and mental, which follow therefrom ; and 
that these feed on one another, is proven by the 
testimony of one of the reporters connected 
with the New- York Daily Times, as detailed in 
the issue of that journal for the first day of 
July, eighteen hundred and fifty-nine. No 
person of feeling and refinement can read the 
account without a shudder. And as these 
things are in passing, in the middle of the nine- 
teenth century, in the richest city on the conti- 
nent, and within five hundred yards of Broad- 
way, one of the most magnificent streets in the 
1 



74 sleep; 

world, occurring every night, being literally a 
standing institution,, it is convincing proof that 
a book on the subject of human beings herding 
together, in personal propinquity, is a want of 
the times. The article referred to is headed 

" THE ABODES OF THE POOR. 

VISIT TO THE CELLARS AKD ATTICS OF THE FOURTH 
WARD, NEW-YORK CITY. 

COW BAY AT MIDNIGHT, 

" There is no pleasure in visiting the haunts 
of wretched men and women, and none in 
writing about them. Indeed, if we tell what 
makes their abodes most wretched, cleanly peo- 
ple think we have sullied our sheet. Still, it 1* 
wholesome to know how humanity suffers in 
our midst, how it even contents itself amidst 
its suffering. We continued our rambles in the 
Fourth Ward last week. 

u A house in Dover street, near Front, for its 
rickety, lazy look — as if the winds must not 
visit it too roughly lest it throw up all efforts 
to maintain its uprightness and crumble down 
— arrested attention. The policeman said it 



COW BAY AT MIDNIGHT. 75 

would be an ugly place to visit at night, but by 
daylight was safe enough. Picking our way 
through the filth on the staircase, we ascended 
to the second story. A knock on the half- 
open door of the first room brought no answer. 
Pushing in, a fat baby, some two years old, 
whose face was plastered thick with dirt, sat on 
the floor, a cat purring at her side. On the bed 
lay a woman dead drunk — a nursing infant 
cuddled beside her. No other person was visi- 
ble, about the premises. Before frightening 
the baby or alarming the guardian kitten we 
retreated. In the next room two women were 
idly gossiping. "We asked who lived in the 
room we had just left. They said it was a 
woman who had gone out somewhere. In the 
third room, a woman was washing — she said 
she knew nothing about the rest of the house, 
and didn't know what rent she paid. Ascend- 
ing another flight of stairs that creaked and 
trembled at every step, we found one vacant 
room under the attic. In another a woman lay 
drunk on the floor, face upward, snoring heav- 
ily. Two children, about three and seven 
years old, were playing together. There was 
no means of exit from this house except by 



76 SLEEP. 

the front-door. The out-house of the concern 
was accessible through the adjoining shed, 
where a negro kept a rum-shop. 

" We next visited the cellars in James street, 
between Oak and Madison. One of them, kept 
by a man of insignificant stature, but consider- 
able self-respect, was particularly interesting. 
This and the adjoining house are old two-story 
shanties ; still, one of them rented last year for 
$387. For the two, $550 was offered and 
refused this year. The cellar was just deep 
enough for us to stand erect in with our hats 
on. It was fitted up for lodgers. It contained 
no bedsteads, but on the left side as we entered, 
two shelves were placed against the wall, one 
above the other, making accommodations for 
four beds. A door on the right opened into a 
room where more shelves were placed for the 
same purpose. Stooping low to avoid a beam, 
we passed to the rear-room, where were a stove, 
a few kitchen utensils, and three more beds. 
Passing into the area behind, we thought we 
had seen the last bed, but the landlord opened 
the door of what was built for an ash-hole, and 
pointing through the darkness to a heap of 
rags, said that it was his bed. The side of a 



LODGING CELLARS. 77 

% 

shoe-box fastened by leathern hinges, stood as 
a door to what we took for a dog-kennel — but 
he said it contained another bed. All told, the 
beds numbered eleven. Our policeman said he 
had seen one of them occupied by a woman 
and her five children. The landlord protested, 
however, that he only took in male lodgers, 
and "some of them were gentlemen too — cap- 
tains who sailed their own boats, having been 
on a bit of a spree, and coming here to sleep it 
off before going on board." He charged a shil- 
ling a night for lodgers, and meant to take none 
but those he knew ; but they would break his 
door down if he didn't take them in, so some- 
times his company wasn't so select as he would 
choose to have it. 

"In the next cellar were three women. They 
too took lodgers, but only families that they 
knew. While the two who belonged on the 
premises were quietly responding to our in- 
quiries, a young woman, who sat on the side of 
a bed, gaudy in a high-colored and low-necked 
dress, suddenly burst out in a very loud tone of 
voice, but decidedly a low tone of morality, 
that her cha-rack-ter was being assailed ; that 
she knew some body who would not stand it ; 



78 SLEEP. 

that if some folks could not attend to their own 
business, she knew some body who knew what 
was what, etc. The two ladies of the cellar fell 
to quieting their gayly-dressed visitor, in such 
loud tones of entreaty to shut up and be civil^ 
and not be offended, and of assurance that no 
body meant her, whereupon she grew so much 
more turbulent, and they so much more demon- 
strative in their efforts to hush her, that the 
policeman on that beat turned in to see what 
the row was, and we prudently retreated. 

" Our next visit was to the famous Cherry 
street tenement-house. It consists of two build- 
ings, both standing with their ends toward 
Cherry-street, one double the width of the 
other. Between them runs ' Gotham-court,' 
into which the lower entry-ways open. ' East 
Gotham-court ' is the alley into which the den- 
izens of one half of the larger building debouch. 
The wisdom of the builders of this five-story 
box of brick and mortar for the packing of 
mortals, led them, when there was a fair oppor- 
tunity to get a ventilation, carefully to exclude 
it. If you enter from Gotham-court, wishing 
to get through to East Gotham- court, there is 
no way but to climb to the roof and pass down 



THE TE]S T EME£TT-HOUSE. 79 

again five flights of steps, and if a current of 
air should feel inspired to blow through, it 
would need to take the same route, which of 
course it would refuse to take, and die out first, 
vainly endeavoring to dilute the prevalent 
stench. As if eight feet width of air, walled in 
between two five- story buildings, might still be 
rather raw and feool for the lungs of those 
whose windows open upon it, the proprietors 
of the place have erected at the far end of the 
court a blacksmith shop, whose perpetual emis- 
sion of charcoal smoke and heat tempered the 
summer wind to the pretty well shorn lambs 
inside. Five years ago the Croton water pipes 
were laid on each floor, but since then they 
have been taken out ; and if, under the eaves 
of this model tenement, a weary woman should 
resolve to try the virtue of cleanliness, she 
must first descend to the foot of all the stairs 
to fill and then tug up to the top again with 
her pail of water. Some ninety-six families 
claim this abode as their home, and pay va- 
riously from $4,50 to $6 rent. It has no cel- 
lar, but from every hall a flight of steps leads 
down to a drain under the pavement of the 
court, that empties into the street-sewer. Over 



80 SLEEP. 

this drain are erected the water-closets, without 
doors. The stench that emanates from this 
drain, and that is thrown back from the sewer, 
pervades the whole place. A more successful 
device to poison slowly, on a large scale, hun- 
dreds of poor people, could not easily be con- 
ceived. 

" This ended our tour for the day. The 
wretchedness it exposed seemed as if it could 
scarcely be paralleled in a civilized city, but to 
some of the miserable shanties we looked back 
after our next expedition, and in comparison 
they seemed cleanly, wholesome, and tolera- 
ble! 

" It was late Sunday night when our party 
set out from the Sixth Ward Station-house, 
under convoy of Sergeant Preston, and another 
officer, who took the lead, lantern in hand. 
The first cellar visited was at No. 35 Baxter 
street. Down half a dozen rickety steps, the 
door was already open to one of the filthiest, 
blackest holes we had yet seen. The stout 
Irishman, who claimed to be landlord, assured 
us that we should find clean sheets in his lodg- 
ing-house, whereat we laughed, supposing him 
to be of a merry turn ; but he was in earnest — 



NIGHT LODGINGS. 8L 

he washed them himself every Thursday, he 
said. We looked in vain for sheets, however ; 
they might have been there, but all the bed- 
clothes were of one color, whatever their tex- 
ture. There were bunks arranged along the 
wall, two or three deep, and in most of them 
men or women, black or white, sleeping 
soundly. The glare of the lantern in their 
eyes did not disturb them at all — pretty clearly 
indicating the possession of consciences cleaner 
than their faces, or that the sleeper had had the 
run of the back-door into the liquor-shops 
during the day. The landlord charged six- 
pence a night for lodging, and lodged none 
under any circumstances but honest hard-work- 
ing people — which statement the police received 
with smiles and without contradiction. Two 
inner rooms were equally well occupied • — in 
one of the hideous beds two children sleeping 
as sweetly as if their couch had been down, 
and the horrible den a cottage. The older 
sister of these children was out begging even at 
this hour. 

" In another cellar close by, a young woman 
with a single scanty garment on, sat on a chest 
crying. That old woman's husband, she said, 



82 SLEEP. 

(the keeper of the place,) had been * banging 
his wife, and hit her a lick sideways that al- 
most killed her.' The wretch had kicked an- 
other girl so severely that she had gone to bed 
early in the day and not got up since. The 
person thus alluded to, lay on a pile of shavings 
in the corner of the room, snoring vigorously. 
The old woman, wife of the brute who admin- 
istered the ' banging,' the l sideways lick,' and 
the 4 kick,' sat on the side of her bed in very 
good spirits. The old man was a little wild 
when he was in liquor, but he'd gone now, and 
that was a comfort. She sympathized with 
the crying woman, and said it was a shame to 
treat the other girl as he did, but he'd gone 
now. She evidently was disposed to let by- 
gones be by-gones. There was a child asleep 
in a cradle, whose mother was also asleep in 
another bed. Two men slept soundly in the 
next bunk, and never minded the light sud- 
denly flashed on them from the lantern. But 
the state-bed, the one that occupied the central 
position, and looked as if a double fare had to 
be paid for its use, was occupied by a stalwart 
negro. L Then you have no prejudices about 
color?' we asked. l No,' said the old woman, 



SCENES ix new-yoke:. 83 

1 he pays for his bed, and his money is as good 
as any body's.' 

" The next visit was to a spot a little south 
of the Ladies' Five Points Mission-room. The 
access to it was through a long, winding hall. 
Reaching the end, the door of one room stood 
half- open, through which a giant negro was 
visible, lying in bed, and, by the light of 
a candle, reading a yellow-covered novel, 
1 "Who's there ?' he asked, but as no one an- 
swered, he kept his eyes on the crack of the 
door, though the book was still held in its 
place. But it was at an adjoining door at 
which the officer knocked. The only answer 
was a volley of oaths. Another knock and 
another explosion of oaths. ' Come, Mose, 
turn up and let us in,' said the officer, and his 
voice seemed to explain the matter, for there 
was soon heard a noise inside as of Mose fumb- 
ling for his clothes, and of feet shuffling off into 
a distant part of the room. At last Mose was 
ready. He turned a key, took down two bars, 
drew a bolt, and took the lighted match handed 
to him. A bottle in the center of the floor 
held the candle, to which he applied the light, 
and Mose's quarters were dimly visible. It 



84 SLEEP. 

was a large room, with a low ceiling, hung 
round with torn posters of great mass-meetings 
and candidates for office, pasted up, however, 
not so much for ornament as to stop the chinks 
in a windy day. In one corner lay a man 
asleep on a blanket ; in the distant corner lay 
rolled into a heap, from which Mose essayed in 
vain to kick off the blankets and show the face 
of his wife, two white women. His own bed 
was invisible, though when asked where it 
was, he pointed to the fireplace. There was no 
furniture of any sort on the premises. Mose 
apologized for being sober ; the Sunday liquor- 
law didn't work very well for him — being 
short, and every thing shut up, he had gone to 
bed earlier than usual. He was about the 
blackest specimen we had yet crossed, his legs 
were set on his body crookedly, his stature ex- 
ceedingly short, and his humor large. He evi* 
dently felt flattered by the visit, and boasted 
that, though his room was nearly empty now, 
it was generally full enough. He could accom- 
modate with a board on his floor all that would 
come. 

" Leaving Mose to mourn his enforced sobri- 
ety, the officer pushed open the door of the 



THE COLORED BACHELOR. 85 

colored bachelor whom we had seen reading 
in bed. His book was the Volunteer, one of 
the choice issues of the Philadelphia press. 
He was evidently in an interesting passage 
when we entered, and had no courtesy to spare 
for us. He answered questions with the air of 
a man who feels that his house is his castle, 
which no man has a right to enter unless to 
search for stolen goods. He would be obliged 
to us if we would knock the next time we 
came — gentlemen always did. He declined to 
bid us good night as we left. His room was a 
contracted one, but his outfit of crockery and 
kitchen-ware creditable — showing that though 
literary tastes may not conduce to polished 
manners, they are not always inconsistent with 
order and neatness. 

We dropped into another cellar, some twen- 
ty feet long and ten feet wide, at one end, and 
eight at the other. Two tiers of bunks, placed 
end to end along the side, were only in part 
occupied. In an emergency the sleepers were 
tucked under the lower one on the earth. 
Twenty could be lodged there comfortably, 
said the German lessee of the premises, and 
he had taken thirty in. The loud voices of 

8 



86 SLEEP. 

tlie people carousing in the ' closed ' bar- 
room over head did not prevent one little 
one from sleeping soundly by the side of its 
mother. Air there was none, nor could be, 
except as it might be forced in through the 
only door of entrance. Quite a company had 
gathered about the cellar-way, who asked as 
we left ' whether we found it ? ' When as- 
sured that we were not looking for stolen 
property, one asked earnestly, if it was yel- 
low fever we were looking for then, instinc- 
tively presuming in what haunts Yellow Jack 
will be sure to be found when on shore. 

" Next, we turned into Cow Bay, and in turn 
explored most of the rooms that are entered 
from this noted alley. Climbing to the top of 
one of the furthest up, much knocking on the 
door brought an answer from a gray-haired 
old man who deplored his poverty. He used 
to take lodgers, but all his bed-clothes had 
been stolen, and now he had none, but lived 
in filthy solitude. In another attic room a 
black man owned the drunken white woman 
at his feet on the floor as his new wife. Three 
wretched white women were in a corner, one 
of whom protested that theirs was the true 



DEGRADATIONS OF CROWDING. 87 

happy family, but their ribaldry degenerated 
into angry oaths and curses on us as we left. 
A vacant room adjoining emitted a most sick- 
ening odor, and for causes that were apparent 
on entering it. In another an infant was cry- 
ing. A woman of reputable appearance and 
cleanly, who was trying to comfort it, with a 
scowl of despair on her face, said her husband 
was away, locked up now three months, as a 
witness. And so they all were, each with a 
tale of misery to tell, or if asleep, with a still 
more hopeless story written in their faces. 
Some of these people pay rents that would se- 
cure for them decent apartments in decent parts 
of the city. But they seldom leave them, ex- 
cept to go up to BlackwelPs Island, or to their 
common lodging in the ditch of Potter's Field." 

That the same degradations, social, civil, and 
moral, are found in other countries and other 
ages, to result from many persons herding to- 
gether in the same small house, or hut, or single 
apartment, and that a change to larger apart- 
ments and more roomy buildings, effects a 
like change in social character and position, 



88 SLEEP. 

is strikingly illustrated by a writer of the past 
age. 

" The town of Cardington, England, was 
one of the worst localities in the kingdom. 
Like all others of their class, the huts of the 
people were huddled together, were dirty, ill- 
built, ill-drained, imperfectly lighted and wa- 
tered, and altogether, so badly conditioned and 
unhealthy, as to be totally unfit for the resi- 
dence of human beings. While thus miserably 
cabined, compelled to be uncleanly on their do- 
mestic hearths, uncomfortable in their homes, 
any attempt to improve their minds, to induce 
them to become more sober, industrious, and 
home-loving was useless, except by first aim- 
ing to improve their physical condition, to 
supply them with the means of comfort, at- 
taching them thus to their own fireside, the 
great center of all pure feelings and sound 
morals, to foster and develop in them a relish 
for simple domestic enjoy mente and thus open 
to them a way to the attainment of such mo- 
derate intellectual pleasures, as their lot in life 
did not forbid." 

To these wise and humane ends the first 



HOVELS AKD COTTAGES. 89 

step taken was to render tlte homes of the 
poor fitter dwellings for self-respecting men, 
by removing the mud huts, and replacing 
them with handsome little cottages, and in a 
few years, Cardington became one of the most 
orderly and prosperous localities in the king- 
dom ; the people kept their homes neat, clean 
and comfortable, while they themselves became 
honest, sober, industrious, and religious ; and 
at the end of nearly a hundred years, this 
same village is distinguished for the order, 
regularity, respectability, and thrift of its in- 
habitants. These changes, be it remembered, 
were commenced by exchanging the contracted 
mud hut of the family, for the roomier and 
more inviting cottage. In these mud huts, as 
in Ireland to-day, which the author has visited 
in person, a whole family dwells, of half a 
dozen or more, in the one single room, which 
answers at once for kitchen, chamber, dining- 
room, and. parlor. In such a mode of life 
there must be degradation, self-debasement 



90 SLEEP. 

and disease, proving fully all that was charged 
on a previous page ; and more, that the 
breaking up of this huddling, crowded life, 
with other things which naturally follow in 
their train, is the first, the essential step to- 
wards elevating the people and fitting them 
for the duties of citizenship and religion. 

The force of the above statements, which 
are corroborated by other writers, will be par- 
ried perhaps, by those livicg in the country, 
by saying that they apply only to the crowded 
portions of large cities, but that those who 
live in separate dwellings in the healthful and 
pure atmosphere of the country, need not be 
specially careful in having large airy rooms 
for each individual member of the family. 

To this it may be replied, that Dr. Green- 
how, in an official paper on " The Preventa- 
bility of certain kinds of Premature Death," 
published in London in eighteen hundred and 
fifty-eight, states that one half of the deaths 
occurring in a certain district within a period 



ATMOSPHERIC TAIXTS. 91 

of seven years, were of persons under twen- 
ty years of age, and that such, a result — 

" Does not require large aggregations of im- 
purity for development. A neglected sewer, 
ash - pit or cess-pool, an unsound soil pipe, 
whether in town or country, may be all that 
is required. 

" The farm-house or laborer's cottage, nay 
the mansion of the squire, though' situated in 
the most healthy district, if putrefying animal 
and vegetable refuse is permitted to taint its 
immediate atmosphere, is as liable to be in- 
vaded by fever, as the town dwelling in a 
close alley. 

" The taint of the atmosphere in the vicinity 
of fermenting and decaying matter, proceeds 
chiefly from the gases, but partly also from 
organic matter, in a state of active decomposi- 
tion. Letherby and Barker most thoroughly 
demonstrate, not only how certainly sewerage 
gases affect both health and life, but how small 
a proportion of the gases are capable of extin- 
guishing of life, giving rise to forms of disease 
according to the intensity and duration of their 
administration. 



92 SLEEP. 

" The demonstrations of Dr. Barker were 
chiefly in the way of experiment. Exposure 
by means of a suitable and ingenious contri- 
vance, to the gas of a large cess-pool, 'proved 
fatal to a mouse, and produced in larger ani- 
mals a series of symptoms analogous to those 
of febrile disease, Sulphureted hydrogen, car- 
bonic acid and ammonia, (hartshorn,) the prin- 
cipal and most deleterious components of sew- 
age gas, were experimented with separately. 
Of the first, less than two per cent in the air 
killed a puppy in two minutes and a half, and 
so small a proportion as forty -three hundredths 
(or less than one half of one per cent) killed 
another within the hour. 

" A dog exposed to an atmosphere contain- 
ing one quarter of one per cent of the gas, 
died in nine hours and a half, but another in 
the same description of atmosphere, suffered at 
first, but soon recovered. Others were more 
violently affected in a less contaminated air. 

11 Hartshorn and its salts produced what may 
be unhesitatingly considered typhoid symptoms ; 
and prostration and diarrhea followed the in- 
halation of carbonic acid in small proportions." 

Two most important facts developed by 



EMANATIONS IN THAMES TUNNEL. 93 

these statements are, first, that different in- 
dividuals are affected with a different degree 
of violence on exposure to the very same 
causes of sickness, as was exhibited in the 
matter of the " National Hotel Disease." 
Second, the small amount of a deleterious 
gas mixed with the atmosphere, sufficient 
to produce disease. Let it be remarked that 
sulphureted hydrogen, carbonic acid and 
ammonia, so small a proportion of which be- 
ing mixed in a pure atmosphere causes 
disease and death, are the very gases which 
are given out in largest proportions by a 
sleeper, and the usual standing liquids of a 
chamber. 

In the cutting of the Thames Tunnel, the 
workmen suffered seriously from the delete- 
rious gas. Falling away in flesh, low fever, 
and actual death, were the result in several 
cases, and this, when all chemical tests, and 
those of the most delicate kind, failed to dis- 
cover more than one part of the gas in a him- 



94 SLEEP. 

dred thousand of the air in which they 
worked. 

These facts show beyond denial, that it 
matters not how healthful the location of a 
man's residence may be, whether in city, 
village or country, whether on a plain or on 
a mountain-top — if there are causes in opera- 
tion which taint the atmosphere of the room 
in which he spends hours together, disease 
will inevitably result, and speedily. And as 
crowding in rooms and sleeping together in 
the same bed, are indisputable causes of a 
vitiated atmosphere, it would seem to be an 
imperative duty on the part of all reflecting 
persons, to make it a study how to best secure 
large, airy, well-ventilated rooms to sleep in, 
one person in a bed, and, as often as practica- 
ble, one apartment to each person. 

In order to make an ineffaceable impression 
on the reader's mind, of the immediate deadly 
effects of breathing a bad air, the very kind of 
air which comes from the lungs at each out- 



FATAL EXPERIMENTS. 95 

breathing, to wit, Carbonic Acid Gas, the fol- 
lowing memorandum of a French gentleman is 
given verbatim. From some cause, he became 
tired of life, and not being willing to commit 
the fearful crime of self-destruction, without 
having something useful connected with it, he 
wrote a statement of his sensations as long as he 
was able to trace an intelligible line, thus secu- 
ring for himself an immortality, which, perhaps, 
could never have been achieved by him in any 
other way. M. Deal resolved to destroy him- 
self by burning charcoal in a close room, and 
thus narrates: 

"I have thought it useful in the interest of 
science, to make known the effects of charcoal 
upon man. I place a lamp, a candle and a 
watch on my table, and commence the cere- 
mony. 

" It is a quarter-past ten ; I have just lighted 
the stove ; the charcoal burns feebly. 

" Twenty minutes past ten ; the pulse is calm, 
and beats at its usual rate. 

" Thirty minutes past ten; a thick vapor 



96 SLEEP. 

gradually fills the room ; the candle is nearly 
extinguished ; I begin to feel a violent head- 
ache ; my eyes fill with tears ; I feel a general 
sense of discomfort ; the pulse is agitated. 

" Forty minutes past ten ; my candle has gone 
out ; the lamp still burns ; the veins at my tem- 
ple throb as if they would burst ; I feel very 
sleepy ; I suffer horribly in the stomach ; my 
pulse is at eighty degrees. 

" Fifty minutes past ten ; I am almost stifled ; 
strange ideas assail me. ... I can scarce- 
ly breathe. ... I shall not go far 

There are symptoms of madness. . . 

" Sixty minutes past ten ; I can scarcely write. 
. . . my sight is troubled. . . . My 
lamp is going out. ... I did not think it 
would be such agony to die. . . . ten . . 

" . . Here followed some quite illegible 
characters. Life had ebbed. On the following 
morning he was found on the floor." 

The expired breath is loaded with Carbonic 
Acid, which was the agent of death, in the case 
•just cited. The fatal effects were produced in 
a little over an hour. But not less destructive 
are the results of breathing the atmosphera of a 



EFFECTS OF BAB AIR. 97 

room crowded with, human beings, as was terri- 
bly illustrated in the passage of the steamer 
Londonderry, which left Liverpool on the sec- 
ond of December, eighteen hundred and forty- 
eight, for an Irish sea-port. A sudden and 
fearful storm came on, which, threatened the 
immediate destruction of the vessel. In order 
to allow the sailors the fullest opportunity of 
managing the ship well, the passengers, two 
hundred in number, were required to go below 
into the cabin, which was eighteen feet long, 
eleven wide, and seven high. The hatches were 
closed, and a stout tarpaulin was fastened over 
the only entrance, so as to prevent the passen- 
gers from coming on deck in their uncontrolla- 
ble alarm. There is no evidence to suppose 
that the captain acted otherwise than in good 
faith. He took the course, best calculated in 
his own opinion, to secure the safety of the ves- 
sel and passengers, but he was fearfully igno- 
rant of the nature of bad air and human ema- 
nations; as much so, perhaps, as some who 
9 



98 SLEEP. 

may read these lines. He acted on tlie " spur 
of tlie moment j" there is no time for delibera- 
tion in a sudden, fearful storm at sea. The re-' 
suit, however, was, that in a short time f in the 
fearful agony of the death-struggle, the surging 
mass of suffocating unfortunates burst open the 
hatches and poured out on the deck, the blood 
started from nose, eyes f and ears, and horrible 
convulsions agonized the sufferers. Many were 
dying, seventy- two were already dead ! What 
they endured, no pen has described ; but in the 
very nature of the case, they must have en- 
dured the terrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta, 
already referred to ; and in the wish to produce 
complete conviction on the reader's mind as to 
the corrupting influences which human emana- 
tions have on the atmosphere of $ close room, 
and as to the deadly effects of breathing such 
an air, the description of Commander Holwell 
is given, as printed in the Annual Register foi 
seventeen hundred and fifty-eight, he, himself 
having been one of the prisoners. 



BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA. 99 

" Figure to yourself the situation of a hun- 
dred and forty-six wretches, exhausted by 
continual fatigue and action^ crammed together 
in a cube of eighteen feet, in a close sultry 
night in Bengal, shut up to the eastward and 
southward (the only quarter whence air could 
reach us) by dead walls, and by a wall and 
door to the north, open only to the westward 
by two windows strongly barred with iron, 
from which we could receive scarce any circu- 
lation of fresh air. . . "We had been but a 
few minutes confined before every one fell into 
a perspiration so profuse, you can form no idea 
of it. This brought on a raging thirst, which 
increased in proportion as the body was drained 
of its moisture. Various expedients were 
thought of to give more room and air. To 
gain the former it was moved to put off their 
clothes ; this was approved as a happy motion, 
and in a few moments every one was stripped 
— myself, Mr. Court, and the two young gentle- 
men by me, excepted. For a little while they 
flattered themselves with having gained a 
mighty advantage ; every hat was put in mo- 
tion to gain a circulation of air, and Mr. Baillie 
proposed that every man should sit on his 



100 SLEEP. 

hams. This expedient was several times put 
in practice, and at each time many of the poor 
creatures, whose natural strength was less than 
that of others, or who had been more exhausted, 
and could not immediately recover their legs, 
when the word was given to rise — fell to rise 
no more, for they were instantly trod to death 
or suffocated. When the whole body sat down, 
they were so closely wedged together that they 
were obliged to use many efforts before they 
could get up again. Before nine o'clock every 
man's thirst grew intolerable, and respiration 
difficult. Efforts were made to force the door, 
but in vain. Many insults were used to the 
guard to provoke them to fire on us. For my 
own part, I hitherto felt little pain or uneasi- 
ness, but what resulted from my anxiety for the 
sufferings of those within. By keeping my 
face close between two of the bars I obtained 
air enough to give my lungs easy jlay, though 
my perspiration was excessive, and thirst com- 
mencing. At this period, so strong a urinous 
volatile effluvia came from the prison, that I 
was not able to turn my head that way for 
more than a few seconds at a time. 

"Now every body, except those situated 



EFFECTS OF CROWDED ROOMS. 101 

in and near the windows, began to grow out- 
rageous, and many delirious. "Water ! water ! 
became the general cry. An old Jemmantdaar, 
taking pity on us, ordered the people to bring 
us some skins of water. This was what I 
dreaded. I foresaw it would prove the ruin 
of the small chance left us, and essayed many 
times to speak to him privately to forbid it 
being brought ; but the clamor was so loud it 
became impossible. The water appeared. 
Words can not paint the universal agitation and 
raving the sight of it threw us into. I flat- 
tered myself that some, by preserving an equal 
temper of mind, might outlive the night ; but 
now the reflection that gave me the greatest 
pain was, that I saw no possibility of one 
escaping to tell the dismal tale. Until the 
water came, I had not myself suffered much 
from thirst, which instantly grew excessive. 
We had no means of conveying it into the 
prison but by hats forced through the bars ; 
and thus myself, and Coles, and Scott, supplied 
them as fast as possible. But those who have 
experienced intense thirst, or are acquainted 
with the cause and nature of this appetite, will 
be sufficiently sensible it could receive no more 
9* 



102 SLEEP. 

than a momentary alleviation ; the cause still 
subsisted. Though we brought full hats 
through the bars, there ensued such violent 
struggles and frequent contests to get it, that 
before it reached the lips of any one, there 
would be scarcely a small teacupful left in 
them. These supplies, like sprinkling water 
on fire, only seemed to feed the flame. my 
dear sir ! how shall I give you a just concep- 
tion of what I felt at the cries and cravings 
of those in the remoter parts of the prison, 
who could not entertain a probable hope of ob- 
taining a drop, yet could not divest themselves 
of expectation, however unavailing, calling on 
me by the tender considerations of affection 
and friendship. The confusion now became 
general and horrid. Several quitted the other 
window (the only chance they had for life) to 
force their way to the water, and the throng 
and press upon the window was beyond bear- 
ing ; many, forcing their way from the further 
part of the room, pressed down those in their 
passage who had less strength, and trampled 
them to death. 

"Prom about nine to eleven I sustained 
this cruel scene, still supplying them with 



TERKIBLE SCENES. 103 

water, though my legs were almost broke with 
the weight against them. By this time I my- 
self was near pressed to death, and my two 
companions, with Mr, Parker, who had forced 
himself to the window, were really so. At last 
I became so pressed and wedged up, I was de- 
prived of all motion. Determined now to give 
every thing up, I called to them, as a last in- 
stance of their regard, that they would relieve 
the pressure upon me, and permit me to retire 
out of the window to die iq quiet. They gave 
way, and with much difficulty I forced a pas- 
sage into the center of the prison, where the 
throng was less by the many dead, amounting 
to one third, and the numbers who flocked to 
the windows ; for by this time they had water 
also at the other window. ... I laid my- 
self down on some of the dead, and, recom- 
mending myself to Heaven, had the comfort 
of thinking my sufferings could have no long 
duration. My thirst now grew insupportable, 
and the difficulty of breathing much increased; 
and I had not remained in this situation ten 
minutes before I was seized with a pain in my 
breast, and palpitation of heart, both to the 
most exquisite degree. These obliged me to 



104 SLEEP. 

get up again, but still the pain, palpitation, 
and difficulty of breathing increased. I re- 
tained my senses notwithstanding, and had 
the grief to see death not so near me as I 
had hoped, but could no longer bear the pains 
I suffered, without attempting a relief, which I 
knew fresh air would and could only give me. 
I instantly determined to push for the window 
opposite me, and by an effort of double the 
strength I ever before possessed, gained the 
third rank at it — with one hand seized a bar, 
and by that means gained a second, though I 
think there were at least six or seven ranks 
between me and the window. In a few mo- 
ments the pain, palpitation, and difficulty of 
breathing ceased, but the thirst continued in- 
tolerable. I called aloud : l Water, for God's 
sake!' I had been concluded dead; but as 
soon as the men found me amongst them, they 
still had the respect and tenderness for me to 
cry out, 4 Give him water ! ' nor would one of 
them at the window attempt to touch it till I 
had drunk. But from the water I had no re- 
lief; my thirst was rather increased by it; so 
I determined to drink no more, but patiently 
wait the event. I kept my mouth moist from 



TERRIBLE SCENES. 105 

time to time by sucking the perspiration out 
of my shirt-sleeves, and catching the drops as 
they fell like heavy rain from my head and 
face; you can hardly imagine how unhappy 
I was if any of them escaped my mouth. 

I was observed by one of my com- 
panions on the right, in the expedient of al- 
laying my thirst by sucking my shirt-sleeve. 
He took the hint, and robbed me from time 
to time of a considerable part of my store, 
though, after I detected him, I had the ad- 
dress to begin on that sleeve first when I 
thought my reservoirs were sufficiently replen- 
ished, and our mouths and noses often met in 
contact. This man was one of the few who 
escaped death, and he has since paid me the 
compliment of assuring me he believed he owed 
his life to the many comfortable draughts he 
had from my sleeves. No Bristol water could 
be more soft or pleasant than what arose from 
perspiration. 

" By half-past eleven the much greater num- 
ber of those living were in an outrageous 
delirium, and others quite ungovernable; few 
retaining any calmness but the ranks near the 
windows. They now all found that water, 



106 SLEEP. 

instead of relieving their uneasiness, rather 
hightened it, and Air ! air ! was the general 
cry. Every insult that could be devised 
against the guard was repeated to provoke 
them to fire on us, every man that could, rushing 
tumultuously towards the windows with eager 
hopes of meeting the first shot. But these 
failing, they whose strength and spirits were 
quite exhausted laid themselves down, and 
quietly expired upon their fellows ; others who 
had yet some strength and vigor left, made a 
last effort for the windows, and several suc- 
ceeded by leaping and scrambling over the 
backs and heads of those in the first ranks, and 
got hold of the bars, from which there was no 
removing them. Many to the right and left 
sunk with the violent pressure, and were soon 
suffocated; for now a steam arose from the 
living and the dead which affected us in all its 
circumstances, as if we were forcibly held by 
our heads over a bowl of strong volatile spirit 
of hartshorn until suffocated ; nor could the 
effluvia of the one be distinguished from the 
other. I need not ask your commiseration 
when I tell you that in this plight from half 
an hour after eleven till two in the morning, I 



TERRORS OF SUFFOCATION". 107 

sustained the weight of a heavy man with his 
knees on my back, and the pressure of his 
whole body on my head; a Dutch sergeant who 
had taken his seat on my left shoulder, and a 
black soldier bearing on my right : all which 
• nothing would have enabled me to support but 
the props and pressure equally sustaining me 
all round. The two latter I frequently dis- 
lodged by shifting my hold on the bars, and 
driving my knuckles into their ribs; but my 
friend above stuck fast, and, as he held by two 
bars, was immovable. The repeated trials I 
made to dislodge this insufferable incumbrance 
upon me, at last quite exhausted me, and to- 
wards two o'clock, finding I must quit the 
window or sink where I was, I resolved on the 
former, having borne truly, for the sake of 
others, infinitely more for life than the best of 
it is worth. 

" I was at this time sensible of no pain, and 
little uneasiness. I found a stupor coming on 
apace, and laid myself down by that gallant old 
man, the Eeverend Jervas Bellamy, who lay 
dead with his son, the lieutenant, hand in hand, 
near the southernmost wall of the prison. Of 
what passed in the interval, to the time of re- 



108 SLEEP. 

surrectioii from this hole of horrors, I can give 
you no account." 

Surely, further argument can not be needed 
to produce a practical conviction on the read- 
er's mind of the absolute necessity to health, of 
so arranging, that these destructive, human em- 
anations shall not accumulate in the chambers 
where a third of existence is passed, but 
that while as few of them as possible shall be 
emitted, even these should be swept away by 
such ventilating contrivances as will most effi- 
ciently secure so desirable an object; the two 
first steps being large rooms and separate beds. 

A conjectural reason forms another argu- 
ment against two persons sleeping near each 
other. Each individual has an amount of 
electrical influence, which in its normal pro- 
portion, is health to him. Electricity, like 
air and water, tends constantly to an equi- 
librium, and when two bodies come near each 
other, having different quantities, that which 



SLEEPING WITH OTHEES. 109 

has the greater imparts to that which has the 
less, until both are equal. The lightning 
and the thunder are caused by this exchange 
between a cloud which has plus, and another 
which has its own share, minus. ' "Wind is 
the passing of air* from a section which has 
more to a another which has less. But if a 
human body, with its healthful share of elec- 
tricity or other influence, gives part of it to 
another which has less, it gives away just 
that much of its life, and toust die, unless it 
is recovered in some way ; hence the frequent 
fact, which it needs no authority to substan- 
tiate, that a healthy young infant, who sleeps 
with an old person, will wither and wilt and 
wane and die. Thus, also, the healthy have 
been observed to grow diseased themselves, 
by sleeping with sickly persons. 

In the author's experience, of some twenty 

years, in the special study and treatment of 

common consumption of the lungs, the fact 

has stood out with constant confirmations, that 

10 



110 SLEEP. 

of the widows and widowers applying for 
relief, quite a large proportion bad lost their 
companions by consumption. 

On the other hand, no facts have come to 
light as yet, which prove that the more weal£ 
or sickly person is at all "benefited by what 
injures the healthier party. 

If then, two clouds of different electrical 
states, can not approach each other without a 
mutual change of conditions, and if a man, who 
has an electrical state, natural and healthful 
to him, comes near another in an unhealthful 
state, it would seem demonstrative that harm, 
by an unchangeable physical law, must fall to 
the healthier, without benefiting the other ; 
and that sleeping together in the same bed, is 
a certain injury, and ought to be avoided as 
a habit, by every reflecting person, who is so 
fortunate as to have the means of having a 
room and a bed to himself. It certainly is 
undeniable, that influences are exchanged, call 
them what we may, which waste away the life 



HOW TO SLEEP SOUNDLY. Ill 

of the child, and make it wither and wilt and 
die, like a flower without water. The same 
is true of the robust sleeping with the weakly ; 
and the feeble sleeping with the strong. This 
interchange of influence from close associa- 
tion, is such, that in the course of years, 
the man and wife have been taken for brother 
and sister. But it is a law of nature, enforced 
by authority, human and divine, that kindred 
shall not intermarry ; observation shows that 
it deteriorates the race morally, mentally, and 
physically. This may point to the fact that 
human health, that the perfection of our 
physical nature, at least its preservation, is 
dependent to a great extent on intermarriages 
between persons who are at as great a remove 
as possible from one another, and, we may say, 
of electrical states, as different as possible. It 
must be confessed that this is conjecture as 
to the system, but the one fact is clear, that 
sleeping together in the same bed is des- 
tructive to health as between the old and the 



112 SLEEP. 

young, as between the well and the sick, 
and we may infer as between persons of 
different constitutions. 

A beneficent Providence has wisely ordered 
that the preservation and perpetuation of 
the race should depend on the gratification 
of certain appetites and propensities, and 
that such gratifications should be pleasurable. 
But a high wisdom dictates that these should 
not be blunted by immoderate indulgence, 
nor marred by too frequent repetition ; and it 
should be remembered that they are all under 
the same general laws, for infinite wisdom 
avoids unnecessary complications and diversi- 
ties. "Few and simple'' may be considered 
the description of all the regulations neces 
sary for the preservation of corporeal man. 
"Regularity and moderation" is written on 
all that gives us pleasure, with a wise view 
that it should wear out only with life, and 
that at a good old age. The regulations 
connected with eating, drinking, sleeping, etc., 



INSTINCT AND REASON. 113 

are so much alike, the temptations to over- 
indulgence so constant, the necessity of re- 
straint so apparent, and the evils of excess 
as to times and amounts, so much to be 
dreaded, that a volume might be filled in 
illustrating each. It may, however, suffice to 
treat only of one or two, leaving it to the 
intelligence and aptness of the reader to 
make a general application, and thus much 
time and space will be saved, while the 
practical lessons will be equally valuable. 

Instinct is given to the brute, but diviner 
reason to man — the great end and aim of 
both being the preservation and perpetuation 
of the species of each. This instinct and 
reason were implanted for the purpose of re- 
gulating the enjoyment of those pleasures 
which are wisely and benevolently made a 
happiness and a necessity. Instinct leads the 
brute to the indulgence of the appetites, and 
how often and how much it shall eat and 
drink and sleep is apportioned in a manner 
10* 



114 SLEEP, 

which makes excess impracticable ; hence 
there is a happy exemption from the mil- 
lion forms of disease and pain and suffering 
belonging to the lot of man. He was made 
of a nobler nature, and was treated as a 
nobleman, in that he was not bound down 
to rules and regulations as inflexible as fet- 
ters of brass, but was left to govern him- 
self, to choose for himself, to act for him- 
self, with the reward of elevation here, and 
happiness hereafter, if he deported himself 
well; but with, the penalty of suffering and 
death, physical and moral, if he failed to 
practice a high and wise and dignified self- 
restraint, the first element of which, as to 
eating, drinking, and sleeping, is uniformity. 
A certain amount of sleep rests, renews, and 
strengthens the whole man, but to accomplish 
such a result, sleep must be regular. As to 
what constitutes regularity, it is only neces- 
sary to remark, that the general habit should 
be to retire at the same hour in the early 



HOW TO SLEEP SOUNDLY. 115 

evening of every day. In a short time the 
result will be an ability to go to sleep, within 
a few moments after retiring, and to sleep con- 
tinuously until morning, provided the sleeper 
leaves his bed at the moment he first wakes 
up, and does not sleep during the day. In 
this way sleep will be refreshing, will be de- 
licious, and to the busy worker of brain or 
body, will be worth more than silver or gold, 
and this priceless habit of sleeping soundly 
will be continued to a good old age. 

It is in one sense a daily miracle that a 
man wakes up out of sleep ;^the more it is 
considered, the more wonderful will it ap- 
pear. "With a regularity of retirement, and 
arranging to guard against interruptions, na- 
ture wakes us up the very moment the sys- 
tem has had enough repose, the propensity 
to sleep will come on -within a few minutes 
of the regular time, " will grow stronger until 
it is yielded to, and eventually will become 
m a measure irresistible, or its resistance will 



116 SLEEP. 

be attended with . great discomfort. Another 
result t will be that the body will wake up 
from sleep within a few minutes of the same 
point of time, from one month's end to an- 
other, being a little sooner or a little later, 
making variations according to the tempera- 
ture of the weather, the condition of the at- 
mosphere, and the amount of the exercise of 
the preceding day. Thus it is with other 
desires of the animal nature. Let there be 
an appointed time, not to be changed for 
any common reason ; the feelings will come 
at that appointed time, and when satisfied, 
nature calls for no more until the appointed 
time comes round again. 

But suppose enough sleep is not given. 
Suppose we make an effort to rob nature of 
her due allowance, madness, unending and 
hopeless, is the result ; if the curtailment is 
not great, various degrees of debility and 
wasting and decline come on apace. 

Suppose, on the other hand, it is attempted 



SLEEPING AND EATING- COMPARED. 117 

to force more sleep on nature than she re- 
quires, it is an unnatural sleep, it does not 
rest and refresh, and invigorate ; and instead 
of having more good sleep, the whole of it 
is restless and disturbed, and we lose the 
lusciousness of it all. 

As to eating, there is a remarkable paral- 
lel. If a man eats when he is decidedly 
hungry, and at regular hours of the day, not 
stimulating or teasing or tempting the appe- 
tite by a great variety of food or otherwise, 
he will be regularly hungry under ordinary 
circumstances, will digest his food well, and 
will not desire it especially, except at the 
stated times. 

If, on the other hand, the appetite is 
stimulated, if it is tempted, or if a person 
places himself in a situation where food can 
be had for the turning round, or for the 
stretching out of the hand, and it is taken 
when there is no special desire for it, and 



118 SLEEP. 

when the person would just as lief let it 
alone as to take it, under these circumstances 
a fictitious and an unnatural appetite will be 
created, the digestion will be deranged, a de- 
prayed craving for food will be set up; but 
no sooner is it swallowed, than some trouble- 
some feeling will arise, only to be arrested 
by another gratification ; and thus the whole 
life is a craving, an unsatisfied desire, and so 
much of a burden that the predominating 
wish is to die. 

In this same manner have multitudes fallen 
from high positions into degrading habits of 
beastly intoxication, by allowing themselves 
to have convenient drinks at hand, and at 
first to taste them, not for any particular re- 
lish, but just to be doing something ; and 
having no regular hours for drink, and no 
regular quantity, an unnatural desire springs 
up, a steady craving is generated, increasing 
in its remorselessness day by day, until there 



KEGI7LARHT OF GRATIFICATIONS. 119 

is no happiness but in constant indulgence, 
when at length even that ceases to satisfy, 
and life is a torture. 

The appetites, then, are to be gratified at 
stated times, and at none others ; thej are 
not to be teased or tempted or stimulated by 
always having at hand the facilities for grati- 
fication, but kept in abeyance for fixed oc- 
casions; those occasions being determined at 
first by the decided calls of nature, which 
will then be made regularly, moderately, and 
continuously, to the end of life. 

But if the means of gratification are kept 
at hand, if the mind is permitted to rest on 
them and cherish them, to look forward to 
them, to tempt and tease and worry, the in- 
evitable result will be a morbid apatite, a 
voracious craving never to be satisfied, ener- 
gies wasted, powers prostrated, and an early 
and irretrievable decay, inducing, in a greater 
multitude of cases than one in many would 
imagine, a depressed and soured life, and a 



120 SLEEP. 

miserable suicide's grave. If the victim sur- 
vives incessant tortures, life is but a drawn- 
out agony. Inordinate indulgence wastes 
away the physical constitution, the influence 
of which is perpetuated to all that is born 
of it ; throwing around the hapless victim 
the slimy coils of a boa-constrictor, which 
are tightened pitilessly every day, until health 
and hope, and life itself, mortal and im- 
mortal, are crushed out helplessly and for- 
ever. 

What is said of real but unlawful indulgen- 
ces, is true of all forms of the artificial ; and ex- 
cesses in the lawful are not the less pernicious, 
are not the less destructive of body and health, 
and heart and soul, than are excesses in the un- 
natural and the unlawful ; and in this state- 
ment there is a lesson of the very highest prac- 
tical importance to every reader ; hence, one of 
the grounds for the pains taken in these pages 
to convince the understanding, that as to the 
appetites of our nature, barriers should be op- 



RESTRAINT OF APPETITES. 121 

posed to the too inordinate and too facile op- 
portunities of gratification ; and that as to 
them all, there should be such metes and 
bounds as the nobler reason may indicate, and 
as observation and experience may show are 
proper, healthful and safe. Without wise re- 
straints, as experienced physicians well know, 
effects, unsuspected by the sufferers themselves, 
or by their friends, are sometimes induced, 
which have a deplorable influence on mind and 
body; as to the latter, wearing it away into 
hopeless emaciation and decline ; and as to the 
mind, inducing an exaggeration of many of the 
most undesirable characteristics of our nature ; 
it becomes unsteady, vacillating, fretful, mo- 
rose and suspicious ; self-respect and self-esteem 
are lost ; an intolerable depression weighs down 
the whole man ; hope, and desire, and ambition 
fail, and relief is madly sought in suicide, the 
sorrowful verdict being, "Died by his own 
hand ;" a verdict rendered, oftener than many 
11 



122 SLEE?. 

think for, over the doubly dishonored body; 
dishonored in the manner of the death, and 
more deeply still by the degrading causes of it. 
Such being some of the results of over-indul- 
gences, thoughtful persons naturally seek for 
some rule of guidance, and we are not left 
without an index, without some friendly line 
of right and safety. Eevelation seems to mark 
out that line, interposes a mete and bound, de- 
cides the measure of our gratifications in the 
comprehensive expressions : " Be ye temperate 
in all things." " Let your moderation be 
known to all." If this temperance is not ob- 
served, if this moderation is not practiced habit- 
ually, persistently, and with a wise, noble, he- 
roic self-denial, the penalty will not fail to be 
inflicted, pleasure will first lose its keenness, 
next, it will pall upon the senses, and ultimate- 
ly fail. In one direction, the power of sleep 
has been lost; in another, the appetite for food 
has been lost ; and the person becomes the vio 



EXTINCTION OF FAMILY NAMES. 123 

tim of ills, physical, mental and moral, which 
make of life a crushing burden, a miserable 
failure, and a continual curse. 

It is to the excessive indulgence of the appe- 
tite which leisure and easy opportunity affords 
in large cities, that family names die out so 
soon. It is rare in Paris, that the grand-child 
reaches manhood in vigorous health, if at all, 
whose parents and grand-parents were born, 
and lived, and died in that voluptuous capital. 
The rapid disappearance of family names which 
were prominent and numerous in New-York in 
the beginning of the present century, shows 
that the greatest city in the New World is not 
behind the greatest of the Old, in the respect 
named; not owing wholly, it is true, to extrav- 
agant indulgences, but largely owing to that, 
beyond contradiction. 

In every direction, idleness and opportunity 
have led multitudes every where, in the city 
and in the country, to brutalize themselves. 
For example, one very common cause of some 



124 SLEEP. 

of the worst forms of dyspeptic disease, is the 
not being particularly engaged, while at the 
same time, some inviting article of food is at 
hand, in the same room. This has been al- 
ready referred to ; it is the same in relation to 
drink, and every other form of indulgence, and 
there is no safety against any of them, but in 
the interposition of efficient barriers to too 
facile gratifications, and the more of these a 
man can erect, the safer will he be, and they 
are wisest, who use all means for the purpose 
which can even slightly aid in accomplishing 
the desired result. 

The reflecting reader can here form the re- 
quisite rules of action ; the first great laws be- 
ing regularity and temperance ; the latter being 
promoted by not having at hand the easy op- 
portunity of indulgence; by putting temptation 
out of the way ; by cultivating an active and 
fully occupied life, and by not making it his 
chief aim and end, to eat, and drink, and enjoy 
the pleasures which perish in the moment of 



AVOIDING TEMPTATION. 125 

their using, but to live for the high and absorb- 
ing purpose of human elevation, and of achiev- 
ing an immortal existence beyond the present 
scenes. Sight, and propinquity, and touch, 
bring wants which otherwise would not have 
sprung up, wants which grow, and strengthen, 
arid overpower, until reason and common-sense 
are swept away as with a flood, and the reign 
of unrestraint sets in, to the end of a complete 
brutalization ; and to prevent such results, or 
any approach to them, the expedient of the 
book is proposed, as offering a comparatively 
easy remedy ; for a quaint writer says : " When 
a man has once got into the rapids of Niagara, 
the next thing he will do, will be to go over 
the Falls. Having once got in, there is no pos- 
sibility of getting out. The way for him to 
escape going over, is not to get into the rapids. 
When a marw has once put a spark to powder, 
he need not clap his hand upon it to keep it 
from going off. It will do no good. The only 
way for him to keep it from going off, is to 
11* 



126 SLEEP. 

keep the spark away from it. Many men can 
let the cup alone if they keep away from it ; 
who can not, if they go where it is. Many 
men can abstain from lust, if they do not go 
within the circuit of its malaria, who can not 
free themselves from it, after they have once 
become infected by it. Many men can control 
their temper, so long as they avoid every thing 
calculated to arouse it, who have no power 
over it, after it has once become aroused. 
Many of our dispositions must be taken care 
of, beforehand, not afterwards. And when 
they have led us into wrong courses, our error 
consists, not in the fact that we could not keep 
ourselves, but in the fact, that we did not learn 
enough about ourselves to know that some 
parts of our nature were not to be exposed; 
that some parts of our nature must be carried 
with watching, with vigilant vforelooking." 
The great principle is well put here, that to 
avoid excesses, we must not put ourselves in 
the way of a too easy indulgence of what is al- 



?/ 



EFFECT OF EXCESSES. 127 

lowable. If all the evils which arise from any 
kind of over-indulgence, ended in the persons 
who practice them, it would be, comparatively 
speaking, a happy thing ; but they are far-reach- 
ing in their pernicious influences ; they extend 
beyond those who practice them, and are car- 
ried into the ages to come, destined to be a 
blight on generations yet unborn. 

All excesses beget debility of the organs 
connected with them, and these organs, whether 
they be the lungs, the stomach, the liver, or 
any others, will always, under this excessive 
action or stimulation, prepare a vitiated, im- 
perfect material, diseased and monstrous, ac- 
cording to circumstances. Hence the multi- 
tude of weakly, sickly, puny persons, in every 
direction; muscles flabby, bones slight, face 
wan, gait unstable, and the whole " physique " 
an abortion. As to the moral nature, there 
is a blight over it all — a wanting to be some- 
thing, without an ability to be any thing — fickle, 
way*v?,rd and unfixed; while in another di- 



128 SLEEP. 

rection, there are low inclinations, vicious ten- 
dencies, degrading practices, and a general 
lack of all that is high, and noble, and ele- 
vating. As to the mind of those begotten in 
brutalizing indulgences, it is without strength, 
without persistence of purpose, and without 
either the capacity or the desire for high cul- 
ture and exalted aims. Thus the whole na- 
ture, physical, moral and mental, is a blight, 
a blot, a blank. 

That the characteristics of the future being, 
in body, and brain, and heart, are colored by 
those of the parents, which prevail about the 
time of reproduction, is conceded by scientific 
men, and demonstrated by facts. A Massa- 
chusetts state paper, on " Lunacy," reports 
that four fifths of the idiotic children, were 
those of parents one or both of whom, lived 
in habits of drunkenness — indicating that 
children begotten in the stupor of debauch, 
will have a vacuity of mind for life. On the 
other hand, it is known that the mother of 



IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION. 129 

the first Napoleon, for months before lie 
was born, accompanied her soldier husband 
in his martial expeditions, and traversed the 
country side by side with him on horseback, 
thus sharing in all his toils. Hannah of old, 
conceived and carried Samuel, while her 
whole nature was imbued with a deep reli- 
gious devotion, under the influence of which 
she consecrated the future prophet to the 
supreme service of his Maker. It would 
seem, then, to be a wise forethought, that 
perpetuation should be accomplished under 
favoring conditions of mind and body ; the lat- 
ter in high health, invigorated by a regular, 
unbroken and refreshing sleep, the blood all 
pure, by an eight or ten hours' breathing of 
fresh, luscious, life-giving air ; while the former, 
fully aroused to a sense of high responsibili- 
ties, the heart and affections, at the same time, 
loving and pure, would present a combina- 
tion of desirable circumstances, which could 
not possibly be hoped for in any other way 



130 SLEEP. 

than by the expedient which the idea of 
the book proposes, whereby every thing- 
could be made a subject of deliberate, thought- 
ful, and rational calculation, and surprise, in 
moments of mental, moral and physical un- 
fitness, would be impossible. 

BUSINESS AND SLEEP. 

It will not be denied that a night of sound, 
undisturbed sleep, is essential to bodily com- 
fort for the next day, and quite as essential 
in its renovating influences on the brain, for 
the proper discharge of the business duties 
of each; and it can not be gainsaid that 
separate apartments greatly promote this end. 

To provide well for the family, is the first 
social duty, and it is the absorbing aim of 
every intelligent and affectionate parent. Such 
provision falls mainly on the father, and it is 
of primary importance that when he comes 
home from the labors of the day, he should 
be able to retire early, and remain undisturbed 



BROKEN SLEEP PERNICIOUS. 131 

until the morning, that fully refreshed and 
invigorated as to body and mind, he may be 
placed in the most advantageous position 
possible, for the exhibition of that activity 
and alacrity which are essential to business 
success. That in moments of weakness, in- 
attention, or want of concentration, men have 
made mistakes, have fallen into errors of 
judgment foreign to their general character, 
by which fortune, and perhaps position too, 
have been compromised, and their families 
brought to subsequent deprivation and actual 
destitution, will not be disputed. That there 
were causes for such transient mental weak- 
ness, is just as true, and that want of suffi- 
cient rest and sleep is an adequate cause, is 
patent to all. Certain it is, that battles have , 
been lost, and the fate of nations decided, for 
less causes than the want of a good night's 
sleep. In order to secure this to business 
men and to laboring men, to the fullest ex- 
tent, they should have rooms, or at least 



132 SLEEP. 

beds, to themselves It is of importance, 
also, to the wife, but not to so great an extent, 
because slie is always at borne, and if Her 
sleep is interrupted from any cause during 
the night, she can take it in the daytime; 
but the husband is at his business, and it is 
impracticable. In very many cases, house- 
hold duties may not allow the wife to retire 
at an early hour. Ten, eleven, and even 
twelve o'clock finds some of them barely 
able to complete their daily round of duties, 
in consequence, however — in too many cases 
— of the inexcusable habit of remaining in 
bed during the precious hours of the early 
morning. But be that as it may, whether 
it is actually necessary or not, the effect is the 
same, to wit, to disturb the sleeper in the first 
sleep, preventing falling asleep again, in many 
persons, for hours afterwards — valuable hours 
utterly wasted. And as similar results occur 
to both parents, while infant children are 
growing up, it is in place to propose some 



INFANTS SLEEPING. 133 

rules in reference to the same; this is espe- 
cially desirable for the mother's sake first, and 
that of the child itself, also; for if she has 
her rest broken, it has a most debilitating 
effect on the body, and causes great mental 
irritability or depression, all of which react 
on the body and mind of the child through 
its natural aliment, and in other ways. 

It may be proper, for the first month 
or two, that the child should sleep in the 
same bed with its mother, but after that, 
both will be greatly benefited by separate 
beds. An infant should not be allowed to 
sleep for several hours previous to its bed- 
time, which should be about one hour after 
sun-down, when it should be fed and put 
to sleep. When the mother retires, it 
should be fed again, then if the crib be 
on the same level with the bed, and close 
to it with the side let down, the mother 
can place the child in it without straining 
herself. At the end of several hours, hun- 
12 



234: SLEEP. 

ger will wake it up, when it can be 
nursed, replaced in its crib and sleep sound- 
ly until the morning, if it has not been 
allowed to sleep too long or too late in 
the afternoon, and thus afford the wearied 
mother a delicious night's rest, to arise in 
the morning with a renovated system, re- 
freshed, thankful, and hopeful, and ready to 
enter on the duties of the day with a 
light and cheerful heart. On the other 
hand, in consequence of bad management 
and a want of system as to the times of 
eating and sleeping for the nursling, jand by 
keeping it in the same bed with her, it be- 
comes restless, it wakes up a dozen times 
perhaps in a night, and each time, by some 
noise or motion rouses the mother, with the 
result of depriving her of that rest and re- 
pose which she so much requires, and the 
morning finds the body still weary, the 
mind discouraged and depressed, b totally 
unfitted for the proper discharge of house- 



NURSING AT NIGHT. 135 

hold duties, as is too plainly indicated by 
the expression of listlessness and sadness 
which pervade the features. Indeed, a 
mother can better afford to eat too little 
than to sleep too little, but by arranging to 
have the regularities named carried out for 
several nights in succession, there will be a 
happy change in all respects. When a child 
is six months old, it can safely fast five or 
six hours if asleep, and, as before, if fed a 
little before sun-down, it should be put to 
bed a little later, and not be allowed to 
take any thing more until the mother retires 
for the night, which may be about ten 
o'clock, and if nursed then, it need not be 
repeated until the morning, thus allowing 
the mother to have her " first" sleep unin- 
terrupted, a consummation so earnestly de- 
sired by many an overtaxed wife, but which 
she is unable to arrange for want of 3 lit- 
tle thought, firmness and management. The 
reader is earnestly requested to make par- 



136 SLEEP. 

ticular note of it, that the seeds of a life- 
time suffering, if not an early death, are 
sown in the constitutions of children by 
their own mothers during the nursing pe- 
riod. Millions of children die before they 
are two years old, by a wrong system of 
feeding, originating in the ignorance of the 
parents. The instinct and the highest plea- 
sure, of the new-born child is to eat, it is 
the balm for all its cries, it hushes every 
complaint. The young mother soon finds 
this out, and putting it to the breast is the 
panacea for infant fretfulness. But it soon 
happens that the stomach is overtaxed. A 
second feeding occurs before the first has 
been disposed of, the stomach is thus kept 
working all the time, and soon has not the 
strength to work any longer, and the food 
being unacted upon, begins to ferment, turns 
sour, generates wind and this is the " colic" 
of infancy. Colic gives pain, pain excites 
crying, to quiet which, food is given, or 



TEDDING OF INFANTS. 137 

"soothing" syrups are administered, with the 
inevitable result in all cases, of exaggerating 
the trouble sooner or later ; and in countless 
instances, there is a speedy and entire break- 
ing down of the system, and death ends the 
outrage, as to the child, but in the mean 
while, by reason of the child's sufferings, 
many a night has been passed in sleepless- 
ness by both parents. Under such circum- 
stances, separate chambers are a necessity, so 
that at least one of them may have the 
repose so much needed in the increased de- 
mands of the occasion. Under the circum- 
stances, it is fitting here to append a few 
remarks, as a means of avoiding nightly 
disturbances, on the 

FEEDING OF INFANTS. 

For the first few weeks the child may 

be nursed every two hours, at the beginning 

of the third week every three hours. When 

six months old, no good purpose can be 

12* 



138 SLEEP. 

subserved by feeding a child oftener than 
eyery four hours, and never between. Hence 
if fed at sun-down when it it should be put 
to bed for the night, then fed again when 
the mother retires four hours later, she will 
not be waked during the first sleep which 
does so much good, and only once during 
the night, and long before the child is two 
years old, she will have brought it into the 
habit of not requiring food during the whole 
night, a consummation which many a mother 
has earnestly looked for, but not knowing 
how to bring it about, has fallen into irregu- 
larities of nursing, which in the way already 
described, have entailed life-long injuries, 
physical, mental and social. 

DIFFERENT TEMPERAMENTS 
SLEEPING TOGETHER. 

It is a well-known fact that some persons 
require more bed-clothing than others; one 
feels so much oppressed as not to be able 



CHILDREN SLEEPING TOGETHER. 139 

to sleep with, an amount of covering which, 
leaves another in so chilly a condition as to 
make refreshing sleep an impossibility. A 
high hard bolster is essential to the com- 
fort of one, while another is incommoded 
by a slight elevation of the head during 
sleep. There are cases not a few where 
one person can not sleep with a window up 
without especial bodily suffering for some 
time afterwards ; others feel as if they would 
suffocate, or are in a process of certain 
poisoning, unless the windows are hoisted to 
their fullest capacity for the admission of 
an abundant supply of out-door air. In all 
these varieties of cases, there does not ap- 
pear to be a better and an easier remedy 
than that of separate beds and rooms for 
all. 

CHILDREN SLEEPING TOGETHER. 
As soon as children reach their seventh 
year, various good purposes would be sub- 
served by their sleeping apart; indeed, the 



140 SLEEP. 

neglect of this arrangement has cherished 
feelings, and has ultimately led to early 
vicious practices, alike destructive of the 
health of the body and the purity of the 
heart — to become, years before adolescence is 
passed, a source of physical and mental 
maladies sometimes, from which death itself 
is a welcomed deliverance. 

Here, a branch of the subject opens a 
field of investigation at once wide and im- 
portant, but one which requires so much 
judgment in the handling, that it is a 
debatable question, whether or not it should 
be left unexplored. Some have treated the 
subject, but with such want of discretion, 
that Carpenter, of England, one of the best 
physiologists of the age, hesitatingly records 
his opinion and regret at the* evil tenden- 
cies of the publications made. 

During the later " teens" of youth, cer- 
tain debilitating occurrences take place in 
the early morning hours in the rather un- 



MORNING- EXHAUSTIONS. 141 

sound or dreamy sleep which, precedes the 
waking up, which, if allowed to continue 
unchecked, waste away the vigor and flesh and 
strength of the body, eventually impairing 
the mind itself, causing an unaccountable 
depression of spirits, a distressing nervous- 
ness which declines sometimes into a settled 
stupor or deplorable idiocy ; others again 
become furious maniacs, according to the 
various constitutions and temperaments of 
the persons affected. 

This malady does not occur to all young 
or unmarried persons by any means, but it 
does afflict many to a greater or less ex- 
tent ; not especially hurtful to any, if it does 
not occur oftener than two or three times 
a month ; that much is perhaps a necessity ; 
beyond that, it soon becomes a disease, with 
the manifestations already described. 

These occurrences take place as a result 
of nature's exuberance, or as a consequence 
of practices, of the ill effects of which, 



142 SLEEP. 

those who engage in them, are most profound- 
ly unconscious. These effects are sometimes 
traced to their legitimate causes by those 
who are unusually bright or thoughtful, 
the practices are at once abandoned, and the 
effects cease to be observed to any special- 
ly hurtful extent. But multitudes of the 
young never have the practices nor the de- 
plorable results presented to their minds as 
cause and effect, and hence they continue 
the practices, and thus aggravate the effects, 
until the bodily and mental condition are 
alike pitiable and deplorable. Many parents 
who have grown up virtuously, witness with 
deep concern the pallid faces of once ruddy 
children, the trembling fingers, the averted 
eye, the thinned flesh, and the melancholy 
features; on inquiry, the feet are cold, the 
limbs weak, the body chilly, the appetite 
indifferent, the general system irregular, and 
pictures of a deep decline, wake up the af- 
fections in the deepest alarm ; but nothing is 



THE UNFORTUNATE. 143 

complained of ; there is no pain, no suffering, 
while both parent and child may be alike 
unconscious of the existence of the causes 
of such effects ; and while they are hoping 
for a change for the better to take place, 
for the renovating influences of the gladden- 
ing spring-time, or the bracing power of 
the coming fall, the malady may have run 
on to a condition irremediable, and the 
victim passes to the mad-house or to the 
grave. 

The writer knew a gentleman of wealth, 
who had two sons ; the elder was sent to a 
distant institution of learning at the age of 
eighteen years. He was a youth of manly 
bearing and of high promise. His attain- 
ments were unusual for one of his age ; an 
estate was coming to him at his majority, 
which would yield him a revenue of twenty- 
three thousand dollars a year. His health 
be^an to decline. This was traced to prac- 



144 SLEEP. 

tices into which he had been inveigled: of 
which no one could know any thing bui 
himself. He was ignorant of their tenden- 
cies, and continued them until the morning 
debilitations became a drain so exhaustive 
to the vital powers, that he grew pale 
and thin and nervous. In a few months 
his bodily elasticity was gone. In place of 
the habitual courtesy, the high-bred deport- 
ment, and the joyous abandon which once 
characterized him in a remarkable degree, 
there was a listlesness of demeanor, a slov- 
enliness of person and dress, with a settled 
shade of deep melancholy. A mental de- 
pression seized upon him, which it seemed 
impossible to remove by the amusements 
and diversions which commonly have great 
attractions for the young. In short, he be- 
came idiotic eventually, lost the power of 
speech, and now for nineteen years has not 
uttered a single word, nor is it at all like- 



EFFECTS OF BAD HABITS. 145 

ly that he ever will, although thousands are 
spent every year in vain efforts for his re- 
storation. 

Some by the same means fall into con- 
sumptive disease and die in a few years ; others 
become insane, and spend their weary lives in 
a lunatic asylum, or, in a moment of frenzied 
delirium, end their tortures and their exist- 
ence by a suicide's guilty hand. Standard 
medical books abound in such deplorable 
narrations, but no public good could arise 
from varied repetitions. The causes and the 
consequences are the same, and the end 
uniformly deplorable. A very common cause 
is allowing children to sleep together, and 
when once the practices are commenced, sleep- 
ing together nourishes and cherishes them 
until they become an unquenchable and an 
unappeasable pleasure. There are, however, 
some so pure-minded, who have been so 
well brought up by worthy mothers, in being 
kept away from evil associations, that they 
13 



146 SLEEP. 

have never learned the pernicious lessons, 
and learning them intuitively is a bare proba- 
bility. One of the very best safeguards, in 
this direction, is never to allow your own 
children to sleep with the children of others, 
even for a portion of a single night. Your 
neighbor may be as pure and blameless as 
yourself, but never having had the attention 
directed to the point in question, may have 
been remiss in the matter of her children's 
associations, or may have had an overweening 
confidence in their correctness, by which the 
taint may have been introduced, and may have 
grown into a settled habit without any concep- 
tion of its existence ever having entered the 
imagination. 

While sleeping together generally founds 
the habits in question, on the part of children 
and youth, sleeping alone affords the amplest 
opportunity of unbridled indulgence. Hence, 
if parents observe a decided manifestation of 
symptoms which have been enumerated, very 



CORRECTING- BAD HABITS. 147 

especially if connected with, a seeking for 
solitude, with, a desire to be alone, and sleep 
alone, the best means for ascertaining certainly 
that such habits exist, and at the same time, 
without wounding the self-respect, is to occupy 
the same bed for several nights in succession, 
in wakefulness, and the manifestations will be 
made in a most unmistakable manner, either 
as to the habits or the exhaustions. It is 
barely possible that a week shall pass without 
such, exhibition. In either case, take your 
child into your confidence, and without blame 
or accusation, without any charge of crimi- 
nality, but in an incidental and affectionate 
manner, say : " My child, I noticed something 
last night not uncommon with, youth, and as 
you may not know the nature of it, perhaps 
it might be best for me to tell you all about 
it, because sometimes persons become deranged 
by it, or kill themselves.' ' Then make the 
communication in such a way that your child 
may not feel like a criminal, and at the same 
time, may be deeply impressed with the nature 



148 SLEEP. 

of the results which will follow a continuance 
of the practice. If the exhaustions occur 
without any connection with the practices, 
as is the case in multitudes of instances, from 
an exuberance of nature's fires, and hence 
without an iota of blame to the subject of 
them, or whether they have arisen from the 
practices in question, the remedy is the same, 
which is to adopt such means as will most 
effectually break up the occurrences, which 
can be done with comparative ease when the 
parent and the child work together, without 
there being any necessity of calling in a 
physician, which would be more or less em- 
barrassing to all parties. 

In using the methods about to be proposed, 
it is again particularly urged, as an important 
means of arriving more speedily at valuable 
practical results, that parents take special pains 
to show that they do not regard these things as 
degrading, as the result of criminal influences ; 
for they are not so, necessarily, but simply as 
an exuberance of nature or of health, over 



BOOKS ON " PHYSIOLOGY." 149 

which the party affected has no control. It 
will have a good influence in every way, to 
let it be seen that it is regarded simply as an 
attack of illness, such as bilious fever, rheu- 
matism, neuralgia, and the like. In this 
manner, the self-respect of the party is not 
wounded, and the way is opened for con- 
fidences and the interchange of affectionate 
sympathies, as in the case of other sicknesses, 
between parents and children, with the result 
that the means employed will be undertaken 
with a spirit and hopefulness which would 
not exist under other circumstances. 

It may be proper here to advise parents of 
the existence of books of a vile character, 
which are scattered broadcast over the land, 
xinder various names, but the general term, 
'Physiology," is used to designate them. 
Under the pretense of explaining the physiolo- 
gy of the parts implicated, the passions and the 
curiosity are stimulated by illustrations and de- 
scriptions, and plates which no person of pro- 
13* 



150 SLEEP. 

per self-respect would ever be seen examining, 
and which can not possibly fail of having a 
corrupting and a degrading influence. The 
reading of such books is fraught with unmixed 
evil. The first design is to effect a sale of the 
book, the next is to mislead the reader, to work 
upon the fears, under the guise of " frankness," 
and "humanity," and when the mind is 
wrought up to a pitch of frenzied terror of im- 
possible things, to propose "a remedy efficient 
and certain in all cases, by reason of the fact 
that the writer has had a life-time's experience 
and success, his studies having led him to in- 
vestigations and remedies, in the prosecution 
of which a fortunate accident led to a series 
of discoveries of incalculable value, and that 
out of sympathy for the misfortunes of the 
young, this mode of living usefully has present- 
ed itself." 

Sometimes, a man constitutes himself a " So- 
ciety," under some other taking designation, 
" Benevolent," " Humanitarian," and the like, 



IMPOSITIONS. 151 

and advertisements, carefully worded, contain- 
ing expressions of great charity and disinterest- 
edness, are scattered every where, carrying 
with them influences and results of a most de- 
plorable character. The young are lured by 
them, first to apply for a circular or a book, 
sent, sometimes, absolutely free of all cost, with 
the expectation, but too frequently realized, 
that the next thing will be an application for 
advice. The symptoms are inquired for, then 
comes a letter enlarging upon the " very dan- 
gerous character of the case, but that, possibly, 
by prompt and very close attention, the evil 
may be warded off, although it will necessarily 
be very expensive.'' 

Let it suffice to say, that city physicians are 
constantly applied to, anonymously, for advice. 
The general tenor of the letter is, after express- 
ing, in the most lively terms, the mortification 
and self-abasement felt, with the strongest self- 
accusatory confessions, to say that having ex- 
pended ten, fifty, a hundred dollars, and some- 



152 SLEEF. 

times several hundred, in taking medicines of 
some individual or society, they find that, if 
benefited at all, it was but transiently, and that 
their troubles have returned. But while in 
correspondence with their wily advisers, great 
care was taken by them to impress on the 
mind of their victim the disreputable nature 
of the ailment, to the following result, in cases 
not a few: Means have been devised by the 
victims to procure money in an unauthorized 
manner ; how many " tills " of employers have 
been invaded ; how many parental treasuries 
have been surreptitiously depleted ; how many 
false representations of needs have been prefer- 
red to indulgent and confiding parents, may 
never be known ; but that these things have 
been done on an extensive scale, and that it 
has been the first step towards actual crime in 
many a youth, only ending in the penitentiary 
or the gallows, is certainly true; and that 
the number is multitudinous, can not be rea- 
sonably questioned for a moment. It could 



THE WILES OF DECEIVERS. 153 

not be otherwise ; the youth is alarmed, and 
sensitive as the young are to such develop- 
ments, it is not wonderful that their brains are 
literally racked with devices to procure the 
ways and means for meeting the remorseless 
demands of the " practitioners " named; and 
that those who have no means of making 
or earning money, should resort to subterfuges, 
and to untruthful representations, or to conduct 
actually criminal, in order to raise the requisite 
amount, requires no special stretch of the imag- 
ination to conjecture. Hence, the judicious use 
of the suggestions of these pages may save, 
and will save many a youth from a fate worse 
than that of death itself. 

These pernicious books, with a great show of 
frankness, give various formulas for making the 
requisite medicines to be taken ; but these are, 
for the most part, known to be inert. This is 
adroitly done, for the victim in all cases will cer- 
tainly try what can be done, in the hope of avoid- 
ing the necessity of a confession or exposure, or 



154 SLEEP. 

the payment of a considerable fee. When, how- 
ever, the means prescribed fail, the next impres- 
sion is that it must be a very aggravated and 
threatening case, and at once the way is pre- 
pared for a consultation and the subsequent de- 
mand for a high fee. 

Let it be distinctly remembered there^ is no 
absolute cure for the exhaustions in question 
short of marriage, old age, or death. There 
are some remedies which repress them while 
they are taken, and for a short time after, but 
the trouble returns, and with it the necessity 
for renewed applications for advice and reme- 
dies, and with them renewed extortions. 

No medicines should ever be used by the 
persons themselves, on their own judgment and 
responsibility ; nor should they be advised by 
any but the educated physician. Hence, there 
will be proposed in these pages only such 
remedial and moral means as can be employed 
with perfect safety and with an infallible good 
effect, more or less decided, according to the 



SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS. 155 

fidelity with which, they are attended to, and 
according to the force of character and will of 
the person employing them. 

Let it be remembered that these early morn- 
ing exhaustions often arise in debility, without 
any other cause, as swollen feet and ankles 
arise from debility from various causes, and do 
not exist of themselves as an evidence of the 
last stages of consumption, although it is a 
symptom which generally attends the last stages 
of that disease, but it is not a " sign" of it, 
for it exists in other cases of debilitating dis- 
ease when the lungs are not at all consumptive. 
The occurrences in question, when excessive, 
are of themselves simply a "sign" of debility, 
but greatly aggravate it, and thus they react 
on one another. Debility produces them, they 
increase the debility, and in process of time a 
single occurrence so depresses mind and body, 
that for hours and even days afterward, the 
mind is utterly incapable of concentrating it- 
self properly on any business, while the body 



• 156 SLEEP. 

is absolutely unfit for any efficient employment;, 
except at a -sacrifice of its well-being. 

But there is another enormity to which at- 
tention is specially invited. The remedies em- 
ployed, which are repressive, are believed by 
many intelligent medical practitioners to be 
hurtful if injudiciously used ; that is, used too 
largely, or too long ; hurtful to the extent of a 
lifelong disablement ; and it is easy ' to con- 
ceive that a young or inexperienced, or reck- 
less, or unprincipled practitioner may be tempt- 
ed, by a variety of selfish considerations, or be 
led by actual incapacity, to employ these medi- 
cines to the hurtful extent named. Nor is this 
all. In the event of failure of success, men 
have been found vile enough to advise as the 
only means of cure, when marriage was imprac- 
ticable, unlawful associations, which is but the 
opening of the flood-gates of vice, leading to 
the ruin of all that is noble and virtuous and 
pure; and how greedily the mind would lay 
hold of the excuse of the necessity of the 



UNLAWFUL INDULGENCES. 157 

thing, backed by the counsels of a medical 
adviser, all heedless of the utter selfishness of 
an act which brings a mere conjectural good to 
self, at the expense of an irreparable ruin to 
another ! No one, it is repeated, can fail to see 
how willingly the mind would lay hold on such 
an apology as a satisfactory reason for greedily 
embracing the tempting alternative. It was in 
this connection that one of the most eminent 
medical writers has expressed his " regrets to 
be obliged to remark that some recent works 
which have issued from the medical press, con- 
tain much that is calculated to excite, rather 
than to repress the propensity, and that the 
advice sometimes given by practitioners to their 
patients is immoral as well as unscientific." 
And it may be said without exaggeration, that 
of all the rash and reckless and demented (for 
the time being) creatures in the universe, the 
greatest, the highest in the scale is the person 
who allows a single indulgence out of honor- 
able and legalized wedlock ; for one error in 
"14 



158 SLEEP. 

this direction is but the opening of flood-gates 
as resistless as an Alpine avalanche ; it is the 
lighting up of desires as unsatisfiable and as 
remorseless as the Norwegian Maelstrom. And 
not only so, a single error, committed in a 
much briefer time than is sufficient to express 
the sentiment, has been followed, in literally 
millions of cases, by the most revolting of hu- 
man maladies, which, when even cured as far 
as external indications are concerned, still bur- 
rows in the system, poisoning the whole blood, 
and liable at any time to break out again like 
the smothered fires of a hatch closed ship, to 
eat the flesh away, rottening even the bones, 
until life becomes a drawn-out torture. And 
in all cases when the system has been once im- 
pregnated with the virus, it never being eradi- 
cated, however perfect the health may seem to 
be, the effects are perpetuated to the offspring, 
to grow up with a worm at the root of life, a 
poison at the fountains of health, which sends 
out disease to every fiber of the system, cor- 



HORRORS OF INFECTION. 159 

rupting the blood and vitiating the whole 
body to such an extent, that it never knows an 
hour of pure health during its entire existence, 
although it may drag itself in weariness to the 
verge of three-score years and ten, literally 
years of sorrow and suffering ! Such are some 
of the dangers to which the young are deliber- 
ately counseled to expose themselves, in the 
numberless cases where the medical adviser 
finds that all his vaunted remedies fail of even 
a temporary cure, and in recklessness and des- 
peration, he counsels the passing of the Rubi- 
con, with the results to the victim just de* 
scribed. And that under the circumstances, 
and with these views, which are true without 
exaggeration, it is the duty of every parent to 
know the position of his child in these regards, 
can not for one single moment be questioned 
by any rational mind. 

Sometimes mechanical devices are employ- 
ed, which, while they are grounds for greater 



160 SLEEP. 

charges, do but increase the mischief in the 
end, although their certain efficiency and their 
harmlessness are insisted upon "with the most 
plausible arguments imaginable. "Kings" 
have been used to a great extent. Enlarge- 
ment always precedes an exhaustion, which 
occurs in a state of unsound slumber, early in 
the morning, when the sleep is nearly out and 
very little suffices to waken up ; if the sleeper 
is wakened up, the thing is avoided. The 
ring interferes with the enlargement, and causes 
pain, and this pain wakens up. But, suppose 
the sleep to be so sound that there is no 
waking up, this mechanical interruption of 
the flow of the blood being still applied, there 
may be a rupture of important blood* vessels, 
of internal arteries, causing life-long and irre- 
parable injuries, if not death itself, for any 
one knows that if the blood be too long 
arrested in its flow at any point in the body, 
it must result in dangerous congestions, or in 



PERNICIOUS INSTRUMENTS. 161 

depriving the part of its * natural amount of 
nourishment, which if continued, must result 
in its disability or death. 

But the wise physiologist will see in an 
instant, that while its immediate efficiency is 
undoubted, its ultimate result can only be to 
increase the evil labored against — thus : during 
the night water always accumulates in the 
bladder, and with this, there is the double 
stimulus of heat and distention, occasioning 
an increased flow of blood to the parts, which 
of itself is a powerful excitant ; and this blood 
being detained by the ring, feeds and prolongs 
the excitement, intensifies it, and hence its 
inevitable effect is to aggravate the yery 
trouble striven against. In process of time, 
however, the parts become accustomed to the 
presence of the ring, become callous to the 
waking-up pain which was occasioned by it, 
and it is powerless to waken up any more, 
heiice it is utterly useless, but in the mean 
14* 



162 SLEEP. 

time its employment lias generated a habit of 
increased flow of blood to the parts, and with, 
it, an increase in the frequency of the debilita- 
tions, and the body is left helpless against its 
destroyer. 

In all these cases there is a want of vigorous 
general health, and the very first step, as well 
as one of the most indispensable, is the em- 
ployment of means for its improvement, for 
the very essence of the ailment is debility, 
which debility it increases, and thus they feed 
on one another, and grow in power while the 
body weakens and wilts away under the 
malign influence. The strictest personal 
cleanliness must be observed. The whole 
body should be scrubbed with a brush, soap 
and warm water, once a week at bed-time, 
with a cold instantaneous shower-bath im- 
mediately after, which shower-bath should be 
repeated every morning, whether in winter or 
summer, the very first thing after getting out 



EATING REGULARLY. 163 

of bed, the whole operation to be completed 
within five minutes ordinarily, and in 
winter, within two minutes, if practicable. 

Next to personal cleanliness, is the necessity 
of eating, regularly and temperately, plain, 
nourishing, well-cooked, unstimulating food, 
using absolutely nothing as a beverage or a 
drink, but cold water, and that not in quan- 
tities greater than an ordinary tea-cupful at 
meal-times, and none within an hour after 
eating; at other times, as much cold water 
may be drank as the appetite calls for. If a 
person is easily chilled, or has not much 
stamina, it would be better to take, in place 
of a half-glass of cold water at meal-time, a 
tea-cupful of hot milk and water, with or 
without sugar. 

Nothing whatever should be eaten between 
meals under any pretense whatever. Break- 
fast should be made of the drink above named, 
with cold or well-toasted bread and butter and 
baked apples, and nothing else, except, as an 



164 SLEEP. 

occasional substitute, one or two soft-boiled 
eggs, or some fish, or a piece of well-broiled 
fresh, meat of any kind. Dinner, take what- 
ever the appetite calls for, of plain food, 
without sauces or spices or condiments of any 
kind, using as a dessert baked or stewed or 
ripe apples, or in their place — in their season, 
— melons, berries, oranges and the like. Sup- 
per, that is, the last meal of the day, should 
be taken not later than an hour after sun-down, 
and should consist of nothing but some cold 
bread and butter with a cup of hot milk and 
water. An arrangement of this kind will 
seldom fail, within a week, of causing a vigor- 
ous appetite fr breakfast and dinner, while 
by taking but little supper, the stomach is 
allowed to rest while the other part of the 
body is doing the same thing, and more undis- 
turbed and refreshing sleep is a natural con- 
sequence. 

To promote the restoration to more vigorous 
health still further, two or three hours in the 



OUT-DOOB ACTIVITIES. ■ 165 

forenoon and one or two in the afternoon 
should be spent in the open out-door air, in 
moderate bodily activities, in some employment 
which involves muscular motion, and if com- 
bined with mental interest of a pleasurable 
character, so much the better. Yery little 
good need be anticipated from mere mechan- 
ical exercise, which involves no other interest 
than that of accomplishing a specified amount ; 
the mind should be engaged, not merely 
pleasurably, but in a manner which shall in- 
terest it, to the extent of calling out its power 
in some degree, and thus diverting it from the 
intention of the thing, as well as from the 
bodily conditions, which these exercises are 
intended to change or remove or favorably 
effect. Hence if it is at all possible, consider- 
ing what human nature is, the activities should 
be pecuniarily remunerative, and if liberally 
so, it is that much the better. But to be more ' 
full as to the means of improving the general 
health, which indeed is the safes't and surest 



166 SLEEP. 

way of removing a variety of bodily ailments, 
it may be well to treat in detail as to Eating, 
Drinking, Sleeping, Kegulating the Bow- 
els, and Attention to the Feet. 

EATING-. 

Before a man becomes hungry, watchful 
nature has calculated, in her way, how much 
nutriment the body needs, and provides as 
much of a liquid substance as will be neces- 
sary to prepare from the food which may be 
eaten that amount of sustenance which the 
system may require. "When this is stored up, 
and all is ready, the sensation of hunger com- 
mences, and increases with the steadily increas- 
ing amount of the digesting material just re- 
ferred to, and the very instant the first mouth- 
ful of food is swallowed, this " gastric juice" 
is poured out into the stomach through a 
thousand sluices ; but no more has been pre- 
pared than # was necessary, for Nature does 
nothing in vain ; so that if a single mouthful 



SOUR STOMACH — HEARTBURK. 167 

more of food has been swallowed than the 
untempted or unstimulated appetite would 
have called for, there is no gastric juice for its 
solution, and it remains but to fret and worry 
and irritate for hours together. If the amount 
eaten is much in excess, the stomach, as if in 
utter discouragement at the magnitude of its 
task, ceases its attempts at digestion, and forth- 
with commences the process of ejecting the un- 
natural load by means of nausea and vomiting 
in some cases ; in others, it remains for an hour 
or more like a weight, a hard round ball, or 
a lump of lead, an uneasy heaviness ; then it 
begins to " sour," that is, to decompose, to rot, 
and the disgusting gas or liquid comes up into 
the throat, causing more or less of a scalding 
sensation from the pit of the stomach to the 
throat; this is called " heartburn." At length, 
the half-rotted mixture is forced out of the 
mouth by the outraged stomach with that 
horrible odor and taste with which every 
glutton is familiar. In some cases the stenchy 
mass is passed out of the stomach downwards, 



168 SLEEP. 

causing, in its progress, a gush of liquid from 
all parts of tlie intestinal canal, to wash it, 
with a flood, out of the system ; this is the 
"Diarrhea" which surprises the gourmand at 
midnight or in the early morning hours, when 
a late or over-hearty meal has been eaten. 
When sufficient food has been taken for the 
amount of gastric juice supplied, hunger 
ceases, and every mouthful swallowed after 
that, no gastric juice having been prepared for 
its dissolution, remains without any healthful 
change, inflaming, and irritating, and exhaust- 
ing the stomach by its efforts to get rid of it, 
and this is the first step towards forming 
11 dyspepsia," which becomes more and more 
deeply fixed by every repeated outrage, until 
at length it remains a life-time worry to the 
mind, filling it with horrible imaginings, and 
a wearing, wasting torture to the body, until it 
passes into the grave. 

The moral of the article is, that the man 
who " forces " his food, he who eats without an 
inclination, and he who strives by tonics, or 



WORK OF THE STOMACH. 169 

bitters, or wine, or other alcoholic liquors, to 
" get up " an appetite, is a sinner against body 
and soul — a virtual suicide ! 

The stomach has two doors, one for the en- 
trance of the food, on the left side ; the other, 
for its exit, after it has been properly prepared 
for another process. As soon as the food is 
swallowed, it begins to go round and round 
the stomach so as to facilitate dissolution ; just 
as the melting of a number of small bits of 
ice is expedited by being stirred in a glass of 
water ; the food, like the ice, dissolving from 
without, inwards, until all is a liquid mass. ' 

Eminent physiologists have said, that as this 
liquid mass passes the door of exit, where 
there is a little movable muscle, called the 
Pyloric Valve, (a faithful watchman,) that 
which is fit for future purposes gives a tap, as 
it were ; the valve flies open and it makes an 
honorable exit. Thus it goes on until the 
stomach is empty, provided no more food has 
been taken than there was a supply of gastric 
15 



170 SLEEP. 

juice for. If a mouthful too much has been 
taken, there is no gastric juice to dissolve it; 
it remains hard and undigested ; it is not fit to 
pass, and the janitor refuses to open the door ;] 
and another and another circuit is made, with 
a steady refusal at each time, until the work is 
properly done. Boiled rice, roasted apples, 
cold raw cabbage cut up fine in vinegar, tripe 
prepared in vinegar, or souse, pass through in 
about an hour ; fried pork, boiled cabbage 
and the like, are kept dancing around for 
about five hours and a half. 

After, however, there has been a repeated 
refusal to pass, and it would appear that any 
longer detention was useless, as in the case of 
indigestible food, or a dime, or cent, or fruit- 
stone, the faithful watchman seems to be almost 
endowed with intelligence, as if saying : " Well, 
old fellow, you never will be of any account ; 
it is not worth while to be troubled with you 
any longer; pass on, and never show your face 
again," 



WEIGHT OR LOAD ON STOMACH. 171 

When food is thus unnaturally detained in 
the stomach, it produces wind, eructations, 
fullness, acidity, or a feeling often described 
as a "weight," or "load," or "heavy." But 
nature is never cheated. Her regulations are 
never infringed with impunity; and although 
an indigestible article may be allowed to pass 
out of the stomach, it enters the bowels as an 
intruder, is an unwelcome stranger ; the parts 
are unused to it, like a crumb of bread which 
has gone the wrong way by passing into the 
lungs, and nature sets up a violent coughing 
to eject the intruder. As to the bowels, 
another plan is taken, but the object is the 
same — a speedy riddance. As soon as this 
unwelcome thing touches the lining of the 
bowels, nature becomes alarmed, and like as 
when a bit of sand is in the eye, she throws 
out water, as with the intention of washing 
it out of the body ; hence the sudden diarrheas 
with which two-legged pigs are sometimes 
surprised. It was a desperate effort of nature 



172 SLEEP. 

to save the body, for if undigested food re- 
mains too long, either in the stomach or bowels, 
fits, convulsions, epilepsies, apoplexies and death, 
are a very frequent result. Inference : Always 
eat slowly and in moderation of well-divided 
food. 

As a universal rule in health, and, with very 
rare exceptions, in disease, that is best to be 
eaten which the appetite craves or the taste 
relishes. 

Persons rarely err in the quality of the food 
eaten; nature's instincts are the wise regu- 
lators in this respect. 

The great source of mischief from eating 
are three: Quantity, Frequency, Rapidity; 
and from these come the horrible dyspepsias 
which make of human life a burden, a torture, 
a living death. 

Rapidity. — By eating fast, the stomach, like 
a bottle being filled through a funnel, is fall 
and overflowing before we know it. But the 
most important reason is, the food is swallowed 



HOW OFTEST TO EAT. 173 

before time has been allowed to divide it in 
sufficiently small pieces with the teeth; for, 
like ice in a tumbler of water, the smaller the 
bits are, the sooner are they dissolved. It has 
been seen with the naked eye, that if solid 
food is cut up in pieces small as half a pea, it 
digests almost as soon, without being chewed 
at all, as if it had been well masticated. The 
best plan, therefore, is for all persons to com- 
minute their food; for even if it is well chewed, 
the comminution is of no injury, while it is 
of very great importance in case of hurry, 
forgetfulness, or bad teeth. Cheerful conversa- 
tion prevents rapid eating. 

Fkequejstcy. — It requires about five hours 
for a common meal to be dissolved and pass 
out of the stomach, during which time this 
organ is incessantly at work, when it must 
have repose, as any other muscle or set of mus- 
cles, after such a length of effort. Hence per- 
sons should not eat within less than five hours' 
interval. The heart itself is at rest more than 
5* 



174 • SLEEP. 

one third of its time. The brain perishes 
without repose. Never force food on the 
stomach. 

All are tired when night comes; every 
muscle of the body is weary, and looks to the 
bed ; but just as we lie down to rest every 
other part of the body, if we, by a hd&rty 
meal, give the stomach five hours' work, 
which, in its weak state, requires a much 
longer time to perform than at an earlier hour 
of the day, it is like imposing upon a servant 
a full day's labor just at the close of a hard 
day's work; hence the unwisdom of eating 
heartily late in the day or evening; and no 
wonder it has cost many a man his life. Al- 
ways breakfast before work or exercise. 

No laborers or active persons should eat an 
atom, later than sun-down, and then it should 
not be over half the mid-day meal. Persons 
of sedentary habits or who are at all ailing, 
should take absolutely nothing for supper 
beyond a single piece of cold stale bread and 



DKESTKING AT MEALS. 175 

butter, or a ship-biscuit, with, a single cup of 
warm drink. Such a supper will always give 
better sleep and prepare for a heartier break- 
fast, with the advantage of having the exercise 
of the whole day to grind it up and extract 
its nutriment. Never eat without an inclina 
tion. 

Quantity. — It is variety which tempts to 
excess ; few will err as to quantity who will eat 
very slow. Take no more than a quarter of a 
pint of warm drink, with a piece of cold, stale 
bread and butter, one kind of meat, and one 
vegetable, or one kind of fruit. This is the 
only safe rule of general application, and allows 
all to eat as much as they want. 

Cold water at meals instantly arrests diges- 
tion, and so will much warm drink ; kence, a 
single tea-cup of drink, hot or cold, is sufficient 
for any meal. 

For half an hour after eating, sit erect, or 
walk in the open air. Avoid severe study or 
deep emotion, soon after eating. Do not sit 



176 SLEEP. 

down to a meal under great grief or surprise, 
or mental excitement. 

DRINKING. 

MAtf is the only animal that drinks without 
being thirsty, swallowing whole quarts of 
water when nature does not call for it, with the 
alleged view of " washing out" the system. 
"When persons are thirsty, that thirst should be 
fully assuaged with moderately cool water, 
drank (in summer time or under great bodily 
heat or fatigue) very leisurely, but not within 
half an hour of eating a regular meal. Emi- 
nent physiologists agree that drinking at meals, 
dilutes the gastric juice, diminishes its solvent 
power, and retards digestion, especially, if what 
is drank is cold. Persons in vigorous health, 
and who work or exercise a great part of every 
day in the open air, may drink a glass of 
water, or a single cup of weak coffee or tea, at 
each meal, and live to a good old age. But it 
is very certain that sedentary persons and in- 



BAD EFFECTS OF ICE- WATER. 177 

valids can not go beyond that habitually, -with 
impunity. The wisdom of such consists in 
drinking nothing at all at the regular meals be- 
yond a swallow or two at a time of some hot 
drink of a mild and nutritious character. Fee 
ble persons will be benefited by hot drinks, be 
cause they warm up the body, excite the circu 
lation, and thus promote digestion, if taken 
while eating, and not exceeding a cupful. 

Cold water ought never to be drank within 
half an hour of eating ; for the colder it is, the 
more instantly does it arrest digestion, not only 
by diluting the gastric juice, but by reducing 
its temperature, which is near one hundred de- 
grees. Ice-water is something oyer thirty-two 
degrees, and, when swallowed, mixes with the 
gastric juice, and lowers its temperature, not to 
be elevated until heat enough has been with- 
drawn from the general system ; and that draft 
must be made until the hundred degrees of 
warmth are attained ; but some persona have so 
little vitality, that the body exhausts itself in 



178 SLEEP. 

its instinctive efforts to help the stomach, from 
which its life and strength come ; and the per- 
son rises from the table with a cold chill run- 
ning down the 'back or over the whole body\ 
Sometimes, these drafts upon the body for 
warmth to the stomach are so sudden and 
great, that they can not be met, and instantane- 
ous death is the result. Many a person has 
dropped dead at the pump or at the spring; 
such a result is more certain if, in addition to 
the person being very warm at the time of 
drinking, there is also great bodily fatigue, A 
French general recently fell dead from drink- 
ing cold water on reaching the top of a moun- 
tain over-heated and exhausted in the effort of 
bringing up his battalions with promptitude. 
Under all circumstances of heat or fatigue, the 
glass of water should be grasped in the hand, 
held half a minute, then, taking not over two 
swallows, rest a quarter of a minute ; then, two 
swallows more, and so on, until the thirst is 
nearly assuaged. Tt will seldom happen that a 



ALCOHOLIC DRIXK8. 179 

person is inclined to take over half a dozen 
swallows thus. 

No case is remembered in the practice of a 
quarter of a century, where malt liquors, wines, 
brandies, or any alcoholic drinks whatever, 
have ever had a permanent good effect in im- 
proving the digestion. Apparent advantages 
sometimes result, but they are transient or de- 
ceptive. If there is no appetite, it is because 
nature has provided no gastric juice ; and that 
is the product of nature, not of alcohol. If 
there is appetite, but no digestive power, liquor 
no more supplies that power than would the 
lash give strength to an exhausted donkey. If 
torture does arouse the sinking beast, it is only 
that it shall fall a little later into a still greater 
exhaustion from which there is no recovery ; so 
with the use of liquor and tobacco as whetters 
of the appetite, when, at length, the desire for 
the accustomed stimulus ceases, and the man 
" sickens ;" there is no longer a relish for the 
dram and the chew, and life fades apace, either 



180 SLEEP. 

in a stupor from which there is no awaking, or 
by wasting and uncontrollable diarrhea. 

SLEEPING. 

Inability to sleep is the first step toward 
madness, while sound and sufficient sleep im- 
parts a vigor to the mind, and a feeling of well- 
ness and activity to the body, which are be- 
yond price. To be able to go to sleep within a 
few minutes of reaching the pillow, and to 
sleep soundly until the morning breaks, and to 
do this for weeks and months together, is per- 
fectly delightful. How such a thing may be 
brought about, and kept up, as a general rule, 
is certainly well worth knowing, and will be 
appreciated, even by those who have lost but 
half a night's sleep. The reader can study out 
the reasons of the suggestions at his leisure. 

Both in city and country, the chamber 
should be on the second, third, or higher floor ; 
its windows should face the east or south, so 
as to have the drying and purifying influences 



SLEEPING APARTMENTS. 181 

of the blessed sun-light; there should be no 
curtains to the bed or windows, nor should 
there be any hanging garments or other woven 
fabrics, except the clothes worn during the day 
each article of which should be spread out by 
itself, for the purpose of thorough airing. 
There should be no carpet on the floor of a 
sleeping-room, except a single strip by the side 
of the bed, to prevent a sudden shock by the 
warm foot coming in contact with a cold floor. 
Carpets collect dust and dirt and filth and 
dampness, and are the invention of laziness to 
save labor and hide uncleanness. 

Ordinarily, mattresses of shucks, chaff, straw, 
or curled hair are best to sleep upon. For old 
persons and those of feeble vitality, there is 
nothing better than a clean feather-bed. No 
one can sleep well if cold. Have as little cov- 
ering as possible from just above the knees 
upwards, but cover the legs and feet abundant- 
ly, for by keeping them warm, the blood is 
16 



182 SLEEP. 

withdrawn from the brain, and to that extent 
dreaming is prevented. 

There should be no standing fluid of any de- 
scription, nor a particle of food or vegetation or 
any decayable substance allowed to remain in a 
bed-room for a moment ; nor should any light 
be kept burning, except from necessity, as all 
these things corrupt the air which is breathed 
while sleeping. 

The entire furniture of a chamber should be 
the bed, two or three wooden chairs, a table, 
and a bureau or chest of drawers. Every arti- 
cle of bed-clothing should be thrown over a 
chair or table by itself, and the mattress remain 
exposed, until the middle of the afternoon ; not 
later, lest the damps of the evening should im- 
pregnate them. From morning until afternoon 
of every sunshiny day, the windows of the 
chamber should be hoisted fully. The fire- 
place should be kept open, at least during the 
night, thus affording a draught from the crevices 
of doors and windows. As foul air is lightest 



NOXIOUS GASES IN" CHAMBERS. 183 

in warm weather, it is best that the sash should 
be let down at the top several inches, and 
the lower one elevated quite as much ; by 
this means the pure and cool air from without 
enters and drives the heated, impure air up- 
wards and outwards. 

In a very cold room, without a good draught 
or ventilation, carbonic acid being generated by 
the sleeper, becomes heavy and falls to the 
floor; this gas has no nourishment for the 
lungs, and to breathe it wholly for two minutes 
is to die ; it is this which causes suffocation in 
descending some wells. In summer it goes to 
the ceiling, in winter to the floor; hence it is 
more important that a sleeping room should 
have a very gentle current of air in winter than 
in summer. 

Never go to bed with cold or damp feet, else 
refreshing sleep is impossible; but spend the 
last five or ten minutes before bed-time, at least 
in firetime of year, in drying and heating the 
feet before the fire, with the stockings off. In« 



184 SLEEP. 

dians and hunters sleep with their feet towards 
the camp-fire. 

Different persons require different amounts 
of sleep, according to age, sex, and occupa- 
tion. Nature must make the appointment, 
and will always do it wisely and safely ; and 
there is only one method of doing it. Do 
not sleep a moment in the day, or if essen- 
tial do not exceed ten minutes, for this will 
refresh more than if you sleep an hour, or 
longer. Go to bed at a regular early hour, 
not later than ten, and get up as soon as you 
wake of yourself in the morning ; follow this 
up for a week or two, and if there is no ac- 
tnal disease, nature will always arouse the 
sleeper as soon as enough sleep has been 
taken to repair the expenditures of the pre- 
ceding day, a little more or less in propor- 
tion to the amount of bodily and mental 
effort made the day before. Commonly there 
will be but a few minutes' difference for 
weeks together. It is not absolutely neces- 



franklin's air-bath. 185 

Sary to get up and dress, but only to avoid 
a second nap. Sometimes it is advantageous 
to remain in bed until the feeling of tired- 
ness, with, -winch most persons are familiar, 
has passed from the limbs. It is safest and 
best for all to take breakfast before going 
out of doors in the morning, whether in 
summer or winter, most especially in new, 
flat, or damp countries, as a preventive of 
chill and fever. 

If from any cause you get up during the 
night, throw open the bed-cloihes, so • as to 
give the bedding an airing, and also with 
the hands give the whole body a good rub- 
bing for a minute or two ; the effect will be 
an immediate feeling of refreshment, and a 
more speedy falling to sleep again. This 
was Franklin's remedy in case of restlessness 
at night. 

When it is remembered that one third of 
our whole time is spent in our chambers, 
and that only uncorrupted air can complete 
16* 



188 SLEEP. 

the process of digestion and assimilation and 
purify the blood, it is most apparent that the 
utmost pains should be taken to secure the 
breathing of a pure atmosphere during the 
hours of sleep; and that the most diligent 
attention in this regard is indispensable to 
high health. 

REGULATING THE BOWELS. 

It is best that the bowels should act 
every morning after breakfast ; therefore, 
quietly remain in the house, and promptly 
attend to the first inclination. If the time 
passes, do not eat an atom until they do 
act ; at least not until breakfast next day, 
and even then, do not take any thing except 
a single cup of weak coffee or tea, and 
some cold bread and butter, or dry toast, 
or ship-biscuit. 

Meanwhile, arrange to walk or work 
moderately, for an hour or two, each fore- 
noon and afternoon, to the extent of keep- 



REGULATING THE BOWELS. 187 

ing up a moisture on the skin, drinking 
as freely as desired as much cold water as 
will satisfy the thirst, taking special pains, 
as soon as the exercise is over, to go to 
a good fire or very warm room in win- 
ter, or if in summer, to a place entirely 
sheltered from any draught of air, so as to 
cool off very slowly indeed, and thus avoid 
taking cold or feeling a " soreness" all over 
next day. 

Eemember, that without a regular daily 
healthful action of the bowels, it is impos- 
sible to maintain health, or to regain it, if 
lost. The coarser the food, -the more freely 
will the bowels act, such as corn (Indian) 
bread eaten hot ; hominy ; wheaten grits ; 
bread made from coarse flour, or " shorts;" 
Graham bread ; boiled turnips, or stirabout. 

If the bowels act oftener than twice a 
day, live for a short time on boiled rice, 
farina, starch, or boiled milk. In more ag- 
gravated cases, keep as quiet as possible on 



188 SLEEP. 

a bed, take nothing but rice, parched brown 
like coffee, then boiled and eaten in the 
usual way ; meanwhile drink nothing what 
ever, but eat to your fullest desire bits of 
ice swallowed nearly whole, or swallow 
ice-cream before entirely melted in the 
mouth; if necessary, wear a bandage of 
thick woolen flannel, a foot or more broad, 
bound tightly around the abdomen ; this is 
especially necessary if the patient has to be 
on the feet much. All locomotion should 
be avoided when the bowels are thin, 
watery, or weakening. The habitual use of 
pills, or drops, or any kind of medicine 
whatever, for the regulation of the bowels, 
is a sure means of ultimately undermining 
the health, in almost all cases laying the 
foundation for some of the most distressing 
of chronic maladies ; hence all the pains 
possible should be taken to keep them regu- 
lated by natural agencies, such as the coarse 
foods and exercises above named. 



COLD FEET REMEDIED. 189 



ATTENTION TO THE FEET. 

It is utterly impossible to get well or 
keep well, unless the feet are kept dry and 
warm all the time. If they are for the 
most part cold, there is cough, or sore 
throat, or hoarseness, or sick headache, or 
some other annoyance. 

If cold and dry, the feet should be 
soaked in hot water for ten minutes every 
night, and when wiped and dried, rub into 
them well ten or fifteen drops of sweet 
oil; do this patiently with the hands, rub- 
bing the oil into the soles of the feet 
particularly. 

On getting up in the morning, dip both 
feet at once into water, as cold as the air 
of the room, half-ankle deep, for a minute 
in summer; half a minute or less in win- 
ter, rubbing one foot with the other, then 
wipe dry, and if convenient, hold them to 



190 SLEEP. 

the fire, rubbing them with the hand until 
perfectly dry and warm in every part. 

If the feet are damp and cold, attend 
only to the morning washings, but always 
at night remove the stockings and hold the 
feet to the fire, rubbing them with the 
hands for fifteen minutes, and get immediate- 
ly into bed. 

Under any circumstances, as often as the 
teet are cold enough to attract attention, 
draw off the stockings and hold them to 
the fire ; if the feet are much inclined to 
dampness, put on a pair of dry stockings, 
leaving the damp ones before the fire to 
be ready for another change. 

Some persons' feet are more comfortable, 
even in winter, in cotton, others in woolen 
stockings. Each must be guided by his own 
feelings. Sometimes two pair of thin stock- 
ings keep the feet warmer than one pair 
which is thicker than both. The thin pair 
may be of the same or of different mate- 



DRY AND WARM FEET. 191 

rials, and that which, is best next the foot 
should be determined by the feelings of the 
person. 

Sometimes the feet are rendered more 
comfortable by basting half an inch thick- 
ness of curled hair on a piece of thick 
cloth, slipping this into the stocking, with 
the hair next the skin, to be removed at 
night and placed before the fire to be per- 
fectly dried by morning. 

Persons who walk a great deal during the 
day, should, on coming home for the night, 
remove their shoes and stockings, hold the 
feet to the fire until perfectly dry, put on 
a dry pair, and wear slippers for the re- 
mainder of the evening. 

Boots and gaiters keep the feet damp, 
cold, and unclean, by preventing the escape 
of that insensible perspiration which is al- 
ways arising from a healthy foot, and con- 
densing it; hence the old-fashioned low shoe 
is best for health. 



192 SLEEP. 

But coming to more direct agencies for pre- 
venting morning debilitations, and recapitulat- 
ing somewhat in reference to the procurement 
of sound sleep, in view of its primary import- 
ance as a remedial means, as an aid in making 
it sound and connected, it being known that 
the exhaustions occur in the unsound sleep of 
the later part of the morning, often during the 
" second nap," as it is called, it may be added 
that persons who sleep in the daytime, and thus 
render the sleep of night less deep, are more 
troubled with these things. By going to sleep 
at a regular early hour, say not later than ten 
o'clock, by not sleeping a moment in the day- 
time, and by being regularly waked up at the 
end of seven hours, which is about as much as 
persons usually require, the sleep would, gener- 
ally, in a week be sound, deep, connected, and 
refreshing, up to the last moment of waking ; 
and thus, by removing the chance of unsound 
sleep, the occurrence would be broken up with- 
out farther effort, in cases not particularly ag- 



SECOND NAPS. 193 

gravated. The aid of an alarm-clock may be 
necessary sometimes to waken up persons, but 
within a week or two, nature loves regularity 
so much she would waken up the body within 
a few minutes of the time, if only the habit 
were persistently followed of getting up at the 
very first moment of waking, or at least, by a 
strong exercise of the will, avoiding a second 
nap ; for it is this, by the unsoundness of the 
sleep, which gives rise to dreams, that precipi- 
tates the trouble, in a very great degree. 

Pains should be taken to keep the mind en- 
gaged during the day in the important affairs 
of life, and to avoid exciting subjects of 
thought and feeling at the close of the day. 
As urinary accumulations during the night are 
sources of unhealthful stimulation, the bladder 
should be emptied the very last thing on going 
to bed ; and if the person could be waked up 
about two o'clock in the morning, or every 
third hour, to do the same thing, it would very 
17 



194 SLEEP. 

greatly, promote the object in view. This is aa 
important suggestion. 

The bed-chamber should be large and well 
ventilated, and every thing done to promote 
coolness of the body; a hard bed, with a hair or 
straw mattress, is indispensable, with as little 
covering on the upper portion of the body as 
consistent with comfortable warmth, while from 
the middle of the thighs downwards, there 
should be an abundance of covering, so that 
by keeping the feet quite warm, the blood will 
be diverted thereto, and thus be productive of 
important results. If these things do not avail, 
it is recommended to sleep on the floor, with 
nothing under the person but a " comfortable,' 7 
or a common blanket and sheet doubled. When 
these things also fail, there remains but one of 
two safe alternatives, either marriage or the 
consultation of a physician of known ability 
and of high character; but the latter aid can 
only benefit to the extent of a temporary expe- 



SAFEGUARD OF MARRIAGE. 195 

client, and should be regarded as a means of 
gaining time for a better preparation for mar- 
riage, which., after all, is the great purifier, the 
divinely-appointed means for happifying hu- 
manity, and for perpetuating the race in health 
and vigor and prosperity, and which every pru 
dent and wise parent should use all practicable 
means for encouraging at an early age, not 
later than twenty-five ; it is the honorable safe- 
guard against many ills, and one which every 
affectionate and considerate parent should en- 
deavor to throw around the young as a matter 
of high duty, imposed by the very nature of 
things. 

That all the pains named should be taken by 
parents for the correction of the troubles in 
question, it ought to be a sufficient, an over- 
whelming argument, that mental aberration in 
some form is a frequent result of a neglect of 
the same, either lunacy or the more terrible 
condition of being a hopeless, driveling idiot. 
On the seventeenth day of July, eighteen hun* 



196 SLEEP. 

dred and sixty, a man died in the hospital in 
Dublin, Ireland, which was founded by Dean 
Swift, (himself crazed in later years, and with 
great certainty, as a result in one way or an- 
other of not haying married in early life,) at 
the age of one hundred and six years, having 
been an inmate of the institution since May the 
twenty- eighth, eighteen hundred and two, a 
period of fifty-eight years. It is literally terri- 
ble for a parent to contemplate the possibility 
of his child, so loved now, spending more than 
half a century in the dreary walls of an asylum, 
behind grates and bars of iron, in cold, cheer- 
less, and dreary apartments, never enlivened in 
all that time by one single smile of parent, 
brother, friend ! And how often in the mean 
while to be neglected, to be maltreated, to be 
brutalized over by hired officials, upon whose 
hearts pure pity never made an impress, who 
can say ? 

After all, one of the most efficient aids in 
breaking up the occurrences in question is force 



FORCE OF WILL. 197 

of will, an. iron determination to compel the 
mind to subjects and objects which are of so 
much interest as to direct the greater flow of 
the nervous energies to the brain, or to engage 
in severe manual labor. Keally great students 
and hard workers in mechanics, handicrafts, 
and fields are not much troubled in this direc- 
tion ; those most suffer who have idle time on 
their hands, or whose employments permit sev- 
eral hours of leisure, sufficient to allow nervous 
influences to be directed to unmeet subjects. 
Mere manipular occupations are not the best, 
such as writing, or other exercises, which 
can be performed while the mind can run riot in 
other directions. Let it be remembered that in 
any successful treatment this force of will, 
strength of character, mental diversion will be 
found of very great advantage. And when the 
serious nature of the ailment is taken into con- 
sideration, and the large bearings it has upon 
the happiness and well-being of those who are 
under its influence, all means should be resorted 
17* 



198 SLEEP. 

to which, will have even a slight influence in 
breaking up the evil. 

Sleeping on the back increases the trouble ; 
hence whatever means are used to promote 
sleeping on the side, should be adopted, which, 
indeed, ought to be done, for the benefits to be 
derived in other directions. It is believed that 
no one has nightmare who sleeps on the side. 
If one falls asleep on the right side, it favors 
the passage of the food from the stomach, 
which there opens into the lower bowels, repre- 
sented by the greater ease with which water is 
removed from a bottle by holding it upside 
down, than if, when held in its natural position, 
it is drawn upwards. On this principle the ex- 
pedient of attaching a ball or block of wood to 
the back has been adopted by some. 

To compel the exhaustive use of the means 
named, no medicine is advised. In the rare 
cases where drugs are necessary, consult an 
honorable and educated physician. As to 
roomy apartments, it is well to record some 



1STEW PLANS FOE, HOUSES. 199 

suggestions as to the propriety of introducing 
dwelling-houses -in the larger cities of the 
United States on the European system, in 
reference to which J. E. Hamilton, of New- 
York, has said that 

" The very great difficulty experienced by 
families of moderate means, in attempting to 
obtain economical and convenient residences, 
easy cf access, in the city of New-York, is felt 
and acknowledged by so large and respectable 
a portion of the community, that I hope the 
importance of the subject will be a sufficient 
apology for my venturing to intrude upon your 
valuable space. 

" After devoting long and serious attention to 
this matter, I have prepared a plan which I 
take the liberty of submitting to your inspec- 
tion, and which, I think, will be found capable 
of supplying, to some extent, what has been so 
long desired. I claim no especial novelty for 
my scheme ; nor should it be considered in the 
light of an experiment, for it is simply an adap- 
tation of the well-known and convenient system 
of living in what are called l flats' so common 
among families of the best standing in Paris, 



200 SLEEP. 

Edinburgh, and most of the large cities of Eu- 
rope. 

" You will observe that although there is but 
one general entrance and grand central stair- 
case to my building, the inmates have each a 
private entrance-door and vestibule from the 
common landings on each floor, and are conse- 
quently as much cut off from all communication 
with each other as if they really inhabited 
houses under separate roofs. The main entrance 
and staircase, which are intended to be as pri- 
vate and well-kept as those of any private man- 
sion, (and there is nothing in the exterior to dis- 
tinguish it from that of any first-class private 
residence,) are, nevertheless, to those who enter, 
nothing more than a continuation of the side- 
walk. On arriving at their destination, be it on 
the first or fourth floor, visitors will come to the 
private vestibule entrance of a gentleman's 
house, and will have to ring the bell before 
gaining admission, precisely as they would have 
to do in the street. This is what forms the es- 
sential difference between such a building as I 
propose, and associated houses of any descrip- 
tion hitherto erected in New- York — at any rate, 
to my knowledge. By my plan there can be 



Hamilton's house plan. 201 

no intrusion whatever upon one's privacy, no 
unpleasant and inevitable commingling of fam- 
ilies, any more than among people living next 
door to each other on the same block. 

" If you examine the plans ; you will find that, 
upon an ordinary double lot of fifty feet by one 
hundred feet, I give to each dwelling or flat, of 
which there are eight in my building, (two to 
each floor,) the following accommodation : A 
large front parlor, four good bed-rooms, dining- 
room with china-closet, kitchen, and kitchen 
pantry, bath-room and two water-closets, a wide 
covered piazza in the rear, abundance of closets 
and every other household convenience, and my 
rooms are all thoroughly ventilated, and lit by 
direct lights. In the rear I have provided a 
staircase inclosed by brick walls, not only for 
thorough security in case of fire, but giving ac- 
cess from each dwelling to a separate laundry 
and coal-cellar provided for each in the base- 
ment, and having direct access to the back- 
yards. In the basement are also rooms for the 
janitor and his family, and two large double 
offices which would rent well to physicians and 
others in any good locality. The kitchen de- 
partment is so arranged that fuel can be brought 



202 SLEEP. 

up by a lift from below, and all kitchen refuse 
descend to one common receptacle (to be daily 
removed by the janitor) without the necessity 
of any one going down a single step. The 
building is calculated to be thoroughly supplied 
with all the usual modern improvements of our 
best dwellings. 

" After a careful calculation of the cost of 
such an edifice, including the ground, I am 
prepared to prove that with rentals varying 
from five hundred dollars for the first to three 
hundred dollars for the fourth floor, such a 
building would yield, if erected in one of our 
best neighborhoods, a profit of at least ten per 
cent upon the outlay. I shall be glad if, through 
the instrumentality of the press, the attention 
of some of our builders and capitalists can be 
seriously and practically directed to this import- 
ant question. I think it can clearly be shown 
that whoever undertakes to supply the demand 
to which I have alluded, will speedily find his 
account in it among hundreds of our citizens of 
the highest respectability, who are at this mo- 
ment undergoing all sorts of annoyances and 
inconvenience in vain attempts to obtain pri- 
vate, economical, and suitable homes for their 
families.' 7 



griscom's ventilation. 203 

In tlie same direction the author of that ex- 
cellent treatise on the " Uses and Abuses of 
Air " has communicated to the editors of the 
Scientific American an improved method of ven- 
tilation, and which has been introduced into the 
dwelling of one of the prominent citizens of 
New- York, in reference to which the editors 
remark : 

" This plan for ventilating houses, suggested 
and put in execution by Dr. J. H. Grriscom, of 
New- York, received the sanction of the Third 
National Quarantine and Sanitary Convention, 
held in this city. It pertains to the chemical 
method, the motive power of the air being 
heat, but requiring no extra expenditure of 
fuel, the heat used for the purpose being only 
the waste heat of the furnace by which the 
house is warmed. The arrangement consists in 
the construction of independent ventilating 
flues in the walls of the house, in proximity to 
the hot-air tubes, so that the two may be con- 
nected together by means of a lateral or branch 
tube, by which a current of hot air may, at any 
desired moment, be transmitted from the hot air 



204 SLEEP. 

tube to the ventilating flue. By this means, the 
ventilating flues, which terminate in the open 
air like an ordinary chimney, will be warmed 
by the hot air from the furnace, when the ordi- 
nary hot-air register is closed, as at night in a 
dwelling, or in a school -house after school 
hours. 

" If properly constructed of brick or smooth 
stone, the walls of the flue will, after a current 
of hot air has passed through it a short time, 
become sufficiently heated to rarefy the air 
within, thus giving the flue a good ventilating 
power, even after the current of hot air has 
been withdrawn. For example, if the hot-air 
register of a parlor be closed at ten o'clock at 
night, and the heat, instead of being thrown 
back into the furnace, is allowed to pass through 
the lateral tube into the ventilating flue, and so 
continue till six the next morning, it is evident 
that, during those eight hours, the -interior of 
the ventilating flue must become thoroughly 
heated, so that the next day, when the current 
of hot air is restored to the parlor, the heated 
sides of the ventilating flue will continue to 
rarefy the air within them for many hours, and 
perhaps even days afterwards. 



VENTILATING REGISTERS; 205 

" There being no danger of a reaction of the 
air of the flue through the ventilating register, 
(as is the case when ventilating openings are 
made in ordinary fire-flues,) connections with 
the apartment to be ventilated may be made at 
any point ; and even carried to the opposite side 
of the house, between the beams of the ceiling, 
to ventilate distant apartments. Dr. Grriscom's 
method has the advantage of being applicable 
to all edifices warmed by hot air furnaces of 
any description, which, in general, are those 
most needing ventilation. This arrangement 
may be introduced into many houses already 
erected, by connecting the hot-air tubes with 
such of the ordinary chimney -flues as are not 
used with fire. -^ 

" One of the principal advantages appertain- 
ing to this plan, is the capability of having a 
large number of ventilating-flues put in connec- 
tion with the furnace. In fact, the number 
may correspond with the number of hot-air 
registers, and thus any desirable amount and 
extent of ventilation be obtained." 

Some have gone farther in their benevo- 
lences than to advocate roomy and well* 
18 



203 SLEEP. 

ventilated sleeping apartments for their fel- 
low men. The interests of the noble horse 
are thus pleaded for by a recent writer : 

"Most stables are built low l because they 
are warmer.' But such people forget that 
warmth is obtained at a sacrifice of the health 
of the animal and pure air. Shut a man up in 
a tight, small box. The air may be warmed, 
but it will soon lay him out dead and cold if 
he continues to breathe it. If stables are tight, 
they should have high ceilings ; if they are not 
tight, but open to the admission of cold cur- 
rents of air from all directions, they are equally 
faulty. A stable should be carefully ventilated, 
and one of the cheapest of modes is to build a 
high one." 

The whole subject finds a powerful il 
lustration, in one direction at least, in the 
discoveries which the celebrated traveler, 
Doctor Krapf, has recently made in the in 
terior of Africa, where he has found a na- 
tion of people of whose existence the civil- 
ized world never heard, until the year 
eighteen hundred and fifty-nine or sixty, 



SLEEPING m PURE AIR. 207 

showing that -with social habits of the most 
degraded and brutalizing character, " dis- 
eases are never known among them; they 
die only of old age, or through the assaults 
of their enemies." The only redeeming cir- 
cumstance, the only great influence antag- 
onistic of unheard-of degradations as to 
social habits, and which can at all account 
for the fact even in part, that " sickness is 
unknown, " is in the declaration that they 
have neither houses nor tents, have no cov- 
ering but the trees and the sky. To make 
it more satisfactory, the exact words of the 
traveler are given : 

" To the south of Kaffa and Susa, there is 
a very sultry and humid country, with many 
bamboo woods, inhabited by the race called 
Dokos, who are no bigger than boys of ten 
years old ; that is, only four feet high. They 
have a dark, olive-colored complexion, and live 
in a completely savage state, like the beasts ; 
having neither houses, temples, nor holy trees, 
like the Gallas, yet possessing something like 



203 SLEEP. 

an idea of a higher being called Yer, to whom 
in moments of wretchedness and anxiety they 
pray — not in in an erect posture, but reversed, 
with the head on the ground and the feet sup- 
ported upright against a tree or stone. In 
prayer they say : ' Yea, if thou really dost 
exist, why dost thou allow us to be slain ? 
We do not ask thee for food and clothing, for 
we live on serpents, ants, and mice. Thou hast 
made us, why dost thou permit us to be trodden 
under foot?' The Dokos have no chief, no 
laws, no weapons ; they do not hunt, nor till 
the ground, but live solely on fruits, roots, mice, 
serpents, ants, honey, and the like, climbing trees 
and gathering the fruits like monkeys, and both 
sexes go completely naked. They have thick, 
protruding lips, flat noses, and small eyes ; the 
hair is not woolly, and is worn by the women 
over the shoulders. The nails on the hands 
and feet are allowed to grow like the talons of 
vultures, and are used in digging ants, and in 
tearing to pieces the serpents, which they de- 
vour raw, for they are unacquainted with fire. 
The spine of the snake is the only ornament 
worn round the neck, but they pierce the ears 
with a sharp-pointed piece of wood. 



A SINGULAR RACE. 209 

" The Dokos multiply very rapidly, but have 
no regular marriages, the intercourse of the 
sexes leading to no selected home, each in per- 
fect independence going whither fancy leads. 
The mother nurses her child only for a short 
time, accustoming it as soon as possible to the 
eating of ants and serpents ; and as soon as the 
child can help itself, the mother lets it depart 
whither it pleases. Although these people live 
in thick woods, and conceal themselves amongst 
the trees, yet they become the prey of the slave- 
hunters of Susa, Kaffa, Dumbaro and Kulla ; 
for whole regions of their woods are encircled 
by the hunters, so that the Dokos can not easily 
escape. When the slave-hunters come in sight 
of the poor creature, they hold up clothes of 
bright colors, singing and dancing, upon which 
the Dokos allow themselves to be captured 
without resistance, knowing from experience 
such resistance is fruitless, and can lead only 
to their destruction. In this way thousands 
can be captured by a small band of hunters ; 
and once captured they become quite docile. 
In slavery the Dokos retain their predilection 
for feeding on mice, serpents and ants, although 
often on that account punished by their masters, 
18* 



210 SLEEP. » 

who in other respects are attached to them, as 
they are docile and obedient, have few wants, 
and enjoy good health, for which reasons they 
are never sold as slaves beyond Enarea. As 
diseases are unknown among them, they die 
only of old age, or through the assaults of their 
enemies." 

OLD AND YOUNG SLEEPING 
TOGETHER. 

As to the ill effects to the young, from sleep- 
ing with the old, a medical writer says : 

" A habit which is considerably prevalent in 
almost every family of allowing children to 
sleep with older persons, has ruined the nerv- 
ous vivacity and physical energy of many a 
promising child. Every parent who loves his 
child, and wishes to preserve to him a sound 
nervous system, with which to buffet success- 
fully the cares, sorrows, and labors of life, must 
see to it that his nervous vitality is not ab- 
sorbed by some diseased or aged relative. 

" Children, compared with adults, are elec- 
trically in a positive condition. The rapid 
changes which are going on in their little bodies, 
abundantly generate and as extensively work 



CHILDREN SLEEPING WITH ADULTS. 211 

up vital nervo-electric fluids. But when, by 
contact for long nights with elder and negative 
persons, the vitalizing electricity of their tender 
organizations is absorbed, they soon pine, grow 
pale, languid, and dull, while their bed com- 
panions feel a corresponding invigoration. It 
was sought in the olden time to invigorate King 
David, the Psalmist, by causing a young and 
vigorous and healthy person to sleep with him. 
Although it failed of the desired effect, it proved 
that there was a popular impression that health- 
ful influences were absorbed by one party. Be 
that as it may, it is undeniable that healthful 
influences are lost, and to a fatal extent some- 
times. A woman was prostrated with incura- 
ble consumption. Her infant occupied the 
same bed with her almost constantly day and 
night. The mother lingered for months on the 
verge of the grave — her demise being hourly 
expected. Still she lingered on, daily disprov- 
ing the predictions of her medical attendants. 
The child, meanwhile, pined without any appa- 
rent disease. Its once fat little cheeks fell 
away with singular rapidity till every bone in 
its face was visible. Finally it had imparted 
to the mother its last spark of vitality, and 
simultaneously both died. 



212 SLEEP. 

Eecent medico-chemical investigations, in a 
German city, have proved that the green color- 
ing matter used in the manufacture of curtains 
and paper hangings, contains poisonous sub- 
stances in sufficient quantities to cause illness. 
Several physicians testified that patients sleep- 
ing in rooms hung with decorations containing 
much dark green, speedily recovered their 
health upon being removed to apartments not 
so decorated. And chemical analysis soon 
succeeded in ascertaining the presence of nox- 
ious matter. 

The general argument of these pages is to 
show that sleeping-rooms should be large, 
should be supplied with a pure atmosphere, 
that this should be constantly renewed, and 
that as sleeping with others in the same room 
and in the same bed is an important source .of 
impurity to the air of a chamber, arrangements 
should be made by all who are so fortunate as 
to possess the means, to have a separate room 



ENGLISH AND FRENCH VENTILATION. 213 

and a separate bed for every member of the 
household ; for there are strong reasons for be- 
lieving that every year there are more cases of 
dangerous and fatal diseases gradually engen- 
dered by the habit of sleeping in small, unven- 
tilated rooms, and by crowding persons in the 
same bed and room, than have occurred from a 
cholera atmosphere during any year since its 
first appearance in this country. Yery many 
persons sleep in eight-by-ten rooms, that is, in 
rooms the length and breadth of which multi- 
plied together, and this again by ten for the 
hight of the chamber, would make just eight 
hundred cubic feet, while the cubic space for 
each bed, according to the English apportion- 
ment for hospitals, is twenty-one hundred feet. 
" To give the air of a room the highest degree 
of -freshness," the French hospitals contract for 
a complete renewal of the air of a room every 
hour, while the English assert that double that 
amount, or over four thousand feet an hour, is 
required. Yet there are multitudes in the city 



214 SLEEP. 

of New-York who sleep with closed doors and 
windows, in rooms which do not contain a thou- 
sand cubic feet of space, and that thousand feet 
is to last all night, or at least eight hours of it, 
except with such scanty renewals as may be ob- 
tained through the crevices at the windows and 
doors, not an eighth of an inch in thickness. 
But when it is known that in many instances a 
man and wife and infant sleep habitually in 
rooms which do not net a thousand cubic feet 
of space, it is no marvel that multitudes prema- 
turely perish in cities ; nor is it wonderful that 
infant children wilt away like flowers without 
water, and that five thousand of them die in 
the city of New-York alone, during the hun- 
dred days which include the middle of July of 
any year. 

Another fact is suggestive, that amoog the 
fifty thousand persons who sleep nightly in the 
lodging-houses of London, expressly arranged 
on the improved principles of space and ventila- 
tion already referred to, it has been proven that 



WALL-PAPER POISON. 215 

not* one single case of fever has been engender- 
ed in two years. Let every person of intelli- 
gence improve the lessons of this fact without 
an hour's delay. 

Nothing short of " line upon line" will avail 
to impress these great practical truths on the 
popular mind ; hence the reiteration of kindred 
facts bearing on the general subject of the im- 
pure air of sleeping-rooms, and the disastrous 
effects connected with them. Using wall-paper 
having a green color, especially if fuzzy— called 
velvety — and not glazed, is immediately de- 
structive of health, and even of life, if persisted 
in. As proof, H. Fulland, near Tipton, England, 
moved into a new house in eighteen hundred 
and fifty-nine ; in a short time all his children 
became curiously affected, although they had 
enjoyed good health up to the day of removal. 
They were worse at night than during the day ; 
they were exceedingly restless ; a singular 
twitching or jerking of the muscles, especially 
those of the face, with a decline of the general 



216 SLEEP. 

health, indicated the working of some insidious 
agency. The medical man had them promptly 
removed to another room, when they began at 
once to improve, and soon recovered their 
health. They were then returned to their for- 
mer room, when there was an immediate re-oc- 
currence of the former symptoms. This sug- 
gested that the cause of the symptoms was in 
the room itself. There was a green-colored 
paper on the wall, from a small piece of which 
was scraped fuzz enough to contain, on analy- 
sis, enough arsenic to poison a man. 

There was a very handsome house near one 
of the best provincial towns in England which 
could never keep its tenants. At last it stood 
empty and became worthless, because a detest- 
able fever seized upon every family that lived 
in it. A ready-witted observer promised the 
owner to find out the cause. He traced the 
mischief to one room, and presently conjectured 
what was the matter there. He . let a slip of 
glass into the wall, and found it next day 



PAPERING ON PAPER. 217 

dimmed with, fetid condensed vapor. He tore 
down a strip of paper, and found abundant 
cause for any amount of fever. For genera- 
tions the walls had been papered afresh, with- 
out the removal of any thing underneath. 
And there was the putrid size and fermenting 
old paper, inches deep ! A thorough clearance, 
scraping, and cleaning, put an end to the fever, 
and restored the value of the house. 

In another house, more deadly effects still 
were traced to a workman who, having been 
employed to paper a room, and finding a con- 
siderable hollow in the wall, filled it up with a 
bucket of paste and remnants of paper, and 
then covered it over. The result was, destruc- 
tive decomposition took place, of the paper, the 
paste, and the various coloring matters, throw- 
ing into the room the most deadly gases, which 
were at times of so much, power that sensitive 
persons were attacked with, various symptoms 
of illness, within ten or fifteen minutes after en- 
tering the room. 
19 



218 SLEEP. 

Two children of a manufacturer of " air- 
balls" of colored India-rubber have been de- 
clared by a coroner's jury to have been "acci- 
dentally poisoned by the continuous inhalations 
of particles of deleterious powder used in the 
coloring of air-balls." The father deposed that 
he used "ultra-marine blue, Chinese red, and 
rose-pink, adding: "I did use Brunswick 
green, but desisted when another maker told 
me he had poisoned his finger with it." The 
balls would burst occasionally during the pro- 
cess of inflation, and the whole powder would 
fly about the room like smoke. Sometimes the 
children would pick up a ball after it had 
burst, and the father had seen the powdei 
about their mouths. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently says, iiv 
reference to the poisonous effects of the inhala- 
tion of arsenic : 

"We know, ourselves, of the case of a young 
and beautiful lady of this city, whose health 
was shattered for years, and whose life was se- 



WALL-PAPER POISOK. 219 

riously jeopardized from habitually sleeping in 
a room covered with, paper colored green by 
arsenia. Her early symptoms were merely a 
slight dryness about the throat and fauces, with 
some diarrhea. These gradually increased, and 
resisted all treatment. Dropsy supervened, and 
from being a beautiful girl, she became an ob- 
ject so bloated and repulsive in appearance, as 
to be painful to look at. Her physician sus- 
pected slow poisoning, but the most careful 
analysis of her food could detect nothing, and 
her life was despaired of. At last, however, he 
bethought him of the possibility of the air she 
breathed being the vehicle of the poison. A 
small portion of the wall-paper was taken to 
his laboratory, and,, being subjected to analysis, 
was found to contain arsenic. The lady was 
removed to another part of the house, and her 
recovery, protracted through many months, 
dated from the day of the change." 

It is a well-known fact that one. or more of 
the European governments have prohibited the 
manufacture of the common Lucifer matches, 
in consequence of the terrible eating sores 
which form on the jaws and other portions of 



220 SLEEP. 

the persons of the girls who pass their time in 
rooms where there is a constant smell of brim- 
stone. 

These are but a sample of multitudes of 
cases of authentic record, showing the dan 
gerous and fatal effects of breathing habit- 
ually an impure atmosphere, and that as 
one third of existence is spent in sleeping- 
chambers, the atmosphere of which is spe- 
cially corrupted by two or three persons 
sleeping in the same small unventilated 
room at the same time, strenuous efforts 
should be promptly inaugurated by the more 
intelligent classes of society to abate a social 
custom which exercises such a wide influ- 
ence for evil on the health and happiness 
of the people. 

In reference to the fact that the more 
crowded the habitations of a locality are, 
the more disease there is, and vice versa, 
Parliamentary returns show that of twenty- 
eight hundred infants annually sent to vari- 



VITALITY OF COUNTRY AIE. 221 

ous hospitals in cities aild towns to be 
taken care of, twenty-four out of every 
twenty-five died. A law. was immediately 
passed that they should be sent to the 
coiintry thereafter, when it was found that 
only nine out of twenty-five died the first 
year; that is, instead of twenty-six hundred 
and ninety dying, there are only four hun- 
dred and fifty, a difference of twenty-two 
hundred and forty, showing in a striking 
degree the susceptibility of infants to the 
ill-effects of a contaminated air, and the 
value of causing them to sleep where the 
atmosphere can not be tainted with the 
breath which comes all loaded with im- 
purities from the lungs of others. This 
simple unvarnished statement of the fact, 
which is indisputable, ought to impress the 
mind of every parent deeply with the im- 
portance and the duty of using all practicable 
means for securing to their offspring the ha- 
19* 



222 SLEEP. 

bitual breathing of the purest air possible ; 
not only in the daytime, but also during 
the night, when the system is less capable 
of resisting injurious influences of any kind, 
by reason of the inaction of a state 'of 
sleep, and quite as much from the bodily 
debilities caused by the labors and exer- 
cises of the day, being careful, however, to 
avoid a general, but radical and mischievous 
error, that warm air is necessarily impure. 
"Warmth is as essential to health as pure 
air, and how best to secure both, should be 
the constant effort of all who are wise for 
themselves, and for those whose health and 
lives they are the providential custodians. 
To die childless, after having had children, 
must be one of the most crushing of all 
calamities of the heart ; yet, in multitudes of 
cases, the sufferers are the immediate authors 
of their own sorrows, by reason of their un- 
pardonable ignorance or more criminal neg- 



SLEEPING APARTMENTS. 223 

lect, in the direction, among others, of im- 
proper regulations as to the sleeping and 
breathing of their children. 

A very considerable portion, at least one 
third, of our time is spent in our sleeping- 
rooms, and it is well worthy of considera- 
tion how to make such arrangements as 
will exclude the greatest number of sources 
of atmospheric contamination ; the greatest 
abundance of air and its most plentiful re- 
newal and as a single sleeper will taint 
more than one half the air of a large-sized 
chamber, only one person should be allotted 
to each, when practicable. The chamber 
should be the highest, the airiest, the sun- 
niest, and the cleanest room in every family 
dwelling; and yet the smallest, the most 
cluttered up, and the most out-of-the-way 
apartments are selected too frequently for 
dormitories. " Almost any place will do to 
sleep in," is the tacit language of perhaps 
three fourths of the people; hence, many 



224 SLEEP. 

sleep habitually in garrets, attics, closets, 
Tinder the steps, under the counters, any 
where. Huf eland, the great German physi- 
ologist, says that: " As we spend a considera- 
ble portion of our lives in the bed-chamber, 
its healthiness or unhealthiness can not fail 
to have a very important influence on our 
well-being." 

In hospitals of very moderate liberality, 
an apartment is allowed to each invalid 
equal to ten feet each way, or one thousand 
cubic feet in all; according to this distribu- 
tion, the chamber of a man, wife, and child 
should be at least sixteen feet long, fifteen 
broad, and twelve high, which would give 
less than a thousand feet for each. A hard- 
working man requires fully this much, to 
enable him to derive from sleep that re- 
novation and vigor which will fit him to 
discharge the duties of the succeeding day 
with comfort to himself and with fidelity to 
his employer, hence it has been most perti- 



FETOR OF CROWDED ROOMS. 225 

nently observed that " small bed-rooms are no 
less a curse to the laborer, than they are to 
the farmer, the foreman, the landlord, and 
the nation." 

It is well said in the Scientific American : 

"If the impure air of the Black Hole of Cal- 
cutta could, out of one hundred and forty-six 
Englishmen, kill, in six hours, no less than 
seventy-nine, leaving in the morning no more 
than sixty-seven survivors in the whole, the 
perniciousness of bad ventilation can not be too 
much warned against. If you wish to preserve 
your health, and the health of others, ventilate 
your large rooms, and never live in small ones." 

The following, from Dichens 1 Household Words, 
will be read with interest : 

"People have often said that no difference 
can be detected in the analyzation of pure and 
impure air. This is one of the vulgar errors 
difficult to dislodge from the ordinary brain. 
The fact is, that the condensed air of a crowded 
room gives a deposit which, if allowed to remain 
a few days, forms a solid, thick, glutinous mass, 
having a strong odor of animal matter. If ex- 



226 SLEEP. 

amined by the microscope, it is seen to undergo 
a remarkable change. First of all it is convert- 
ed into a "vegetable growth, and this is followed 
by the production of multitudes of animalcules, 
a decisive proof that it must contain certain 
organic matter, otherwise it could not nourish 
organic beings. This was the result arrived at 
by Dr. Angus Smith, in his beautiful experi- 
ments on the air and waters of towns, wherein 
he showed how the lungs and skin gave out 
organic matter, which is in itself a deadly poison, 
producing headache, sickness, disease, or epi- 
demic, according to its strength. Why, if a few 
drops of the liquid matter obtained by the con- 
densation of the air of a foul locality, introduced 
into the vein of a dog, can produce death by 
the phenomenon of typhus fever, what incalcu- 
lable evils must not it produce on those human 
beings who breathe it again, rendered fouler 
and less capable of sustaining life with every 
breath drawn ! Such contamination of the air, 
and consequent hot-bed of fever and epidemic, 
it is easily within the power of man to remove. 
Ventilation and cleanliness will do all, so far as 
the abolition of this evil goes ; and ventilation 
and cleanliness are not miracles to be prayed 



TENEMENT HOUSE SYSTEM. 227 

for, but certain results of common obedience to 
the laws of God." 

It was announced, at a meeting of the New- 
York Sanitary Society, that only one fourth of 
the population lived in houses which contained 
but one family ; it is therefore almost literally 
a city of tenement-houses: 

" There are single tenement -houses which 
contain one hundred and. twenty rooms, about 
the size of a state-room, and in a single pest- 
house of this description about four hundred 
human beings are immured in an atmosphere 
of effluvia, disease, and indecency. In such 
stupendous sties, ventilation and cleanliness are 
as likely to be found as in the Black Hole in 
Calcutta. On a single block, covering an area 
of four hundred feet square, nearly twice as 
many families are found as on the whole extent 
of the Fifth Avenue ! It is also found that New- 
York, with twenty-one thousand families more 
than Philadelphia, has twenty-three thousand 
less dwellings than the Quaker City. Truly, 
these are astounding facts to every Christian and 
every philanthropist among us. Who can bring 



228 SLEEP. 

any clean tiling out of such immeasurable un- 
cleanness? Do you wonder that fraud and 
peculation abound, when the majority of the 
electors in New- York issue from the tenement- 
house? Do you wonder that streets are filthy, 
children are degraded, property insecure, and 
Sabbath-breaking has to be kept within the 
limits of open heathenism only by the strong 
arm of the police ?" 

From such statements, the conviction presses 
itself upon us, that crowding and crime grow 
together as to communities ; for where there are 
" ninety - six families in a single house, men, 
women, and children sleeping, like pigs or sheep, 
together, without air or ventilation, without 
light, with no protection, and no privacy, all 
breathing the same putrid effluvia," there must 
be moral and physical contaminations at the 
very thought of which the heart of humanity 
sinks and sickens. As with communities, so 
with families : crowding degrades. 

There is significance in the emphatic enuncia 
tion of a popular writer, that "it is one of the 



VENLILATION AND HOUSE- WARMING. 229 

moral duties of every married woman, always to 
appear well dressed in the presence of her hus- 
band." Nothing can so much aid in this regard 
as a separate chamber, and if this were mutual in 
the married relation, it would ad,d incalculably 
to that personal self-respect, that dignity of de- 
meanor, and that courteousness of bearing, the 
most sedulous cultivation of which adds so 
incalculably to the amenities of domestic life. 

VENTILATION AND HOUSE 
WARMING. 

For the double purpose of making this vol- 
ume practical on the general subject of ventila- 
tion, and to show that the popular mind is 
waking up to the importance of the subject, 
the subjoined articles are copied. "A Me- 
chanic," in Buffalo, New- York, writes, on the 
conjoined subjects of House-warming and Ven- 
tilation : 

11 Those who have made experiments for the 
purpose of determining the quantity of pure air 
20 



230 SLEEP. 

required per minute for each individual, vary in 
their conclusions. They publish from three to 
ten cubic feet, but when physiological facts in 
relation to the size of lungs, health of persons, 
and various circumstances are considered, we 
concede the accuracy of either amount. 

" We learn by science that the laws of nature 
do not long permit the enjoyment of health 
where pure air is not ; and also when health is 
lost there can be no possible recovery of it 
without the aid of pure air. When we breathe, 
although the air in the lungs is on one side of 
the membrane and the blood on the other, a re- 
ciprocal action takes place between them. The 
blood receives through the membrane oxygen 
from the air, and at the same time the air re- 
ceives from the blood carbonic acid gas and 
watery vapor. The amount of oxygen and 
carbonic acid gas thus exchanged are said to be 
equal — that is, pure air taken into the lungs is 
expelled with about eighty-five per cent car- 
bonic acid gas and an equal amount of oxygen 
has been taken from it by the blood. 

" It appears that a middle-sized man, aged 
about thirty-eight years, and whose pulse is 
seventy on an average, gives off three hundred 



CARBONIC ACID OF EXPIRATION. 231 

and two cubic inches of carbonic acid gas from 
his lungs in eleven minutes, and supposing the 
production uniform for twenty-four hours, the 
total quantity in that period would be thirty- 
nine thousand five hundred and thirty-four 
cubic inches, (agreeing almost exactly with Dr. 
Thompson's estimate,) weighing eighteen thou- 
sand six hundred and eighty- three grains, the 
carbonic acid in which is five thousand three 
hundred and sixty-three grains, or rather more 
than eleven ounces Troy. The oxygen con- 
sumed in the same time will be equal in vol- 
ume to the carbonic acid gas. See respiration 
under Physiology in the Encyclopedia Bri- 
tannica. 

"It has been shown by experiment that the 
pure air once breathed contains eighty-five per 
cent of carbonic acid, and that the same air by 
continued ' respirations would not take more 
than ten per cent. Hence the necessity in the 
preservation of health of breathing air but 
once as it enters and departs from a room. 
Proper ventilation permits the air to pass aw T ay 
after having been once breathed, for in respira- 
tion the air expelled from the lungs being 
warmed ascends and is not where it may be re- 



232 SLEEP. 

ceived by their next expansion. But if by 1 j~ 
sufficient ventilation air is breathed more than 
once, it gives less oxygen to the blood and 
takes less carbonic acid and watery vapor from 
it than is necessary for the preservation of 
health. The efficacious action of the blood 
ceases because of the deleterious presence of 
carbonic acid in the blood and in the air. Car- 
bonic acid gas has a little more specific gravity 
than atmospheric air, but the difference is so 
slight that when in a current of air it is carried 
upward, or where there is no current, it tends 
downward. 

" Because of the bad ventilation, children in 
school may dread their task. For want of 
pure air their digestion is impeded. They then 
feel as if a heavy burden was upon them. If 
they try to learn they never succeed. If they 
succeed in committing a paragraph to memory, 
it is soon forgotten. Being ignorant of them- 
selves and the causes of their maladies, they 
judge themselves incapacitated for intellectual 
pursuits. 

" It is from the same cause, very frequently, 
that religious congregations have many mem- 
bers who spend in church an hour of sleepy 



IMPURE AIR OF CHURCHES. 233 

thoughtlessness, and return home without being 
able to tell the points of the speaker's discourse, 
though they had been where one of the most 
instructive and interesting sermons was preach- 
ed. It is doubtless because of bad ventilation 
that the power of the advocate of the Gospel in 
the pulpit is much less than it otherwise would 
be. 

" Houses of worship are mostly so construct- 
ed that the impure air is driven, by opening 
the door upon the preacher. He, in the act of 
speaking, inhales it more injuriously than 
others. As a victim he may be marked for an 
early death. The sympathy and defense which 
he would have if a wild beast of the forest 
should assail him in the pulpit does not appear 
to defend him from the consequences of bad 
ventilation, which fact is a proof of the absence 
-of knowledge in relation to the subject." 

VENTILATION OF KITCHENS. 

A correspondent of the Ohio Farmer says : 
" There is always more or less steam and 
grease-smoke caused by cooking, and their re- 
moval is always desirable without resorting to 
open doors and windows. 
20* 



234 SLEEP. 

" In eighteen hundred and fifty-six I put a 
cook-stove into my kitchen, which is fourteen by 
sixteen feet, and placed a ventilator over it, in 
the shape of an inverted funnel, to the upper 
end of which was attached an eight-inch pipe, 
that entered the flue above the stove-pipe. My 
stove and ventilator still remain there, and we 
-are never troubled with smoke or steam — all is 
instantly carried away. 

"This ventilator is of my own planning, and 
made of sheet iron. The eight inch pipe has a 
circular elbow, connecting it with the flue, and 
both it and the stove pipe are below the ceiling. 
The flue is twelve by sixteen inches inside, and 
is therefore capable of carrying off a good deal 
of smoke and air. The rim, or widest Dart of 
the ventilator, is thirty inches in diameter, and 
is suspended four feet above the top of the 
stove. There is a damper in the ventilator 
pipe, that enables me to shut it entirely, if I 
desire to start the fire quick, by increasing the 
draft. It soon becomes necessary to open i% 
however, as the draft in my chimney is too 
great, and burns the wood too fast. Many peo- 
ple have seen it, and think it worth ten dollars 
a year to any kitchen. A hole can be made 



KITCHEN VENTILATION". 235 

easily in the flue, or the pipe may be carried 
through the ceiling, and enter the flue above, 
especially if the kitchen is one story, and an. 
open garret above it. More room is obtained 
by the latter method. It will also do equally 
well if the pipe is carried through the roof or 
side of the house. It is not like a stove-pipe, 
and there is no danger from fire. It is easily 
and cheaply made, and may be obtained from 
any tin-plate or sheet-iron store." 

MANAGING- WINDOWS FOR AIR. 

" There is always a draught through key- 
holes, window- crevices, because as external air 
is colder than the air in the room we occupy, it 
rushes through the window-crevices to supply 
the deficiency caused by the escape of wind up 
the chimney. If you open the lower sash of a 
window, there is more draught than if you open 
the upper sash. The reason o'f this is because 
if the lower sash be opened, cold air will rush 
into the room and cause a great draught inward ; 
but if the upper sash be opened the heated air 
will rush out, and of course there will be less 
draught inward. A room is better ventilated 



236 SLEEP. 

by opening the upper sash, because the hot 
ventilated air, which, always ascends upwards 
towards the ceiling, can escape more easily. 
The wind dries damp linen, because dry wind, 
like a sponge, imbibes the particles of vapor 
from the surface of the linen as fast as they are 
formed. 

" The hottest place in a church, or chapel is 
the gallery, because the heated air of the build- 
ing ascends, and all the cold air which can enter 
through, the doors and windows keeps to the 
floor till it has become heated. Special atten- 
tion should be given to the ventilation of sleep- 
ing- rooms ; for pure air, and an abundance of 
it, is more necessary when we are sleeping than 
when we are awake. Sleeping-rooms should 
be large, high and dry, more especially in warm 
latitudes, and in situations where the windows 
have to be kept closed at night on account of 
malaria." 

VENTILATION OF SHOPS. 

"Few things," says a foreign writer, "are 
more insidiously undermining the constitution 
and vital stamina of many ' young people' 
than the want of sbop ventilation, particularly 
in the evening, when the gas is lighted. 



VENTILATION OF SHOPS. 237 

,( There are many trades, the occupation in 
which is very light, and requires little or no 
exertion. Stationers, fancy wool, top-shops, 
and the like, nearly all keep their doors closed 
1 because it is so cold;' the result is, that the 
burning gas vitiates the air in the shop ; and 
the assistants inhaling this, the circulation of 
the blood is lowered, and the outward cold is 
felt all the more. Again, there are some shops 
the contents of which naturally yield emanations 
of an unhealthy kind when a free current of air 
is excluded. Who, for instance, can go into a 
shoe-shop, the doors of which are kept closed, 
without at once being conscious of the unplea- 
sant odor of old and new leather ? The same 
may be said of a ready-made clothing depot ; the 
peculiar odor of the cloth and fustian, the burnt 
gas, and the confined breath of the people serv- 
ing therein, make it exceeding disagreeable to a 
stranger on entering out of the fresh air. If a 
remark be made by a purchaser that the shop 
1 smells close,' the assistant is almost sure to 
reply that i they don't notice it.' What, how- 
ever, they do notice, is headache, languor, loss 
of appetite, ennui, debility, pallor of the face, 
blotchy skin, redness of the nose, and white face. 



238 SLEEP. 

All unheeded warnings to ventilate the dwelling- 
place, which, if not attended to, produce worse 
results. 

" Many drapers' shops are badly ventilated ; 
some, where they drive a good trade, have been 
enlarged by the addition of neighboring houses, 
all the fireplaces have been removed, and but 
one or two entrances are left to the whole build- 
ing. There are, on the other hand^ many trades 
where the door is always open ; the result is 
that all engaged in it are healthy, and never 
complain of being cold. Look at the butcher- 
boy, blooming and healthy; furniture-dealers, 
tavern-keepers, and many other occupations are, 
as a general rule, healthy, because of the free 
ventilation of the shops or places cf trade. 

" The nose is the gate to the lungs, and what- 
ever is indicative of unpleasantness is unhealth- 
ful, and should be shut out. Instead of closing 
the doors to keep the shop warm, it is better, if 
the cold is severe, to wear warmer under-cloth- 
ing — half gloves, thick stockings, warm jackets, 
and woolly neckerchiefs. In winter, dress ac- 
cordingly in warm clothes, and plenty of them. 
Arising from well-known causes, cold air, par- 
ticularly fresh air, warms the person that 



BREATHING DUST. 239 

breathes it more than warm air. It is proverb- 
• ial that persons sitting quietly in a room ' feel a 
draught' from every cranny. 'The key-hole 
blows enough to turn a mill;' though they 
'creep into the fire,' and roast themselves, they 
have always one si le cold ; yet a little exertion 
in fresh open air wc \ld put them into a glow. 

" As gas burns, an/ people breathe, water is 
produced and exhaled t if this steam has been 
condensed on the inside of windows, you may 
be sure the shop wants Ventilation. Dust of 
every kind should also be avoided with scrupu- 
lous care. Every morning when the shop is 
dusted, doors and skylights should always be 
wide open, so as to clear away the dust as it 
flies about. It avails but little to dust without 
getting rid of it out of the premises ; to make a 
dust with a brush in one place for it to settle in 
another, is labor in vain. Persons who take a 
morning or evening draught of dust are sure to 
be troubled with, air-tube complaints. This, 
then, is another reason for ventilating the shop. 

"Those observations apply not only to the 
tradesman's shop, but also to the workshop or 
factory. The fearful decadence of the health. 
of such towns as Manchester, Oldham and Shef- 



240 SLEEP. 

field, which, arc in truth but congregations of 
workshops, is notorious ; the pale, wan faces of . 
the dwellers there too truly tell the want of 
pure, -clean, fresh air. 

" Passing now from the private shop to pub- 
lic institutions, we are compelled to admit the 
same radical fault — the want of that element 
which is 'the breath of life.' 

u In the churches, schools, and assemblies, 
people who go there suffer more or less from 
this evil. It is proverbial how persons, young 
and old, suffer from colds, bronchitis, and influ- 
enza, all of which are said to be ' caught ! when 
they return from some public place of assembly. 
The question naturally arises, how is this? 
The answer is, that it is caused by the sudden 
change which the body undergoes in passing 
from a heated, impure air to that of the natural 
temperature, containing also its proper propor- 
tion of elements. Man requires for his health 
one gallon of air every minute of his life ; the 
individuals of a church congregation are rarely, 
if ever, supplied with a quarter of that quantity. 
Only at the cathedrals is the air space in pro- 
portion to the worshipers. A man of large- 
lungs inhales about twenty-five cubic inches of 



VITIATED AIR OF CROWDED ROOMS. 241 

air at each respiration ; lie breathes eleven times 
a minute, and thus requires nine and a half 
cubic feet of air every hour. Now when there 
are a thousand persons under one roof (some of 
the metropolitan churches and chapels contain 
twenty-five hundred persons) for a couple of 
hours, it is evident that twenty thousand cubic 
feet of air are required to supply that which is 
necessary for existence to those thousand per- 
sons in a pure atmosphere, so that, of course, a 
much larger quantity than that is required in 
order that a current can be established to remove 
the effete matter of exhalation. 

il The evils of vitiated air are also more to be 
guarded against, because persons can live in it 
without being aware of its danger, so far as 
their sensations are concerned. "When we enter 
a crowded assembly on a cold day, the air is, at 
first, repulsive and oppressive, but these sensa- 
tions gradually disappear, and then we breathe 
freely and are unconscious of the quality of the 
air. Science, however, reveals the fact that the 
system sinks in action to meet the conditions of 
the impure air, but it does so at the expense of 
having the vital functions gradually depressed, 
and when this is continued disease follows. No 
21 



242 SLEEP. 

disease can be thoroughly cured when there is 
a want of ventilation. It is related that illness 
continued in a family until a pane of glass was 
accidentally broken, and then it ceased; the 
window not being repaired,, a plentiful supply 
of fresh air wa& admitted.'' 

BURYIN& UNDER CHURCHES. 

" The practice of building sepulchral vaults 
under the churches was fraught with the great- 
est evil to the health of those who went into the 
edifice for sacred purposes. But, with few 
exceptions, it is now interdicted by the legisla- 
ture ; still a great deal has to be done. Nearly 
all the churches in the empire require some 
artificial means of ventilation to render their 
physically fit receptacles for the body during a 
prolonged service. The Sunday-schools, also, ar 
a general rule, are very ill-ventilated, and in 
the second hour the lessons are far worse ren- 
dered than in the first, solely arising from a 
semi-lethargic coma that comes over the pupils 
breathing a carbonic air, which has already 
done duty, and been inhaled by others several 
times. However it is to be regretted, it is yet 
true that people will sometimes sleep during 



BURYING UNDER CHURCHES. 243 

the sermon. Now, the minister must not be 
twitted with this, for with the oratory of a Jer- 
emy Taylor or a Tillotson, people could not be 
kept awake in an atmosphere charged with 
carbonic gas, the emanations of a thousand 
listeners. The church-wardens should ventilate 
the churches, and see that the congregations 
have sufficient air for breathing; if people go 
to sleep, the church- wardens are more to blame 
than the preacher." # 

VENTILATION AS INFLUENCING 
HEALTH AND LONGEVITY. 

In a public lecture on this subject, Dr. E. Y. 
Robins, an indefatigable worker and an able 
and scientific writer on subjects allied to venti- 
lation and general hygiene, said that air was the 
prime necessary of life ; that we could live 
more days without food than we could minutes 
without air. The purpose of our breathing was, 
first, to supply the blood with oxygen, which 
is the life-sustaining principle of the air, and 
second, to free the blood from carbonic acid and 
other impurities. The air which we breathe is 
found, on expiration, to have lost a large part 
of its oxygen, and to be impregnated with car- 



244 SLEEP. 

bonic acid gas — that substance which often 
proves fatal to persons who descend into wells, 
and which is the active agent of death in cases 
of suicide by burning charcoal. It produces 
death whether retained in the blood or inhaled 
into the lungs — the poisoning process in both 
cases being precisely the same. 

To produce death by that agent, it was by 
no means necessary that it should be breathed 
•in a pure state. Dr. Carpenter had ascertained 
that air confining five or six per cent of car- 
bonic acid gas would produce immediate death, 
and that less than one half that quantity would 
soon prove fatal; and Dr. T. Herbert Barker 
had ascertained by experiments with this sub- 
stance, that an animal in an atmosphere con- 
taining only two per cent of carbonic acid 
would die in about two hours. Now the air 
which we exhale from the lungs contains, ac- 
cording to standard authorities, about five per 
cent of carbonic acid, and hence if exactly the 
same air were reinhaled it would quickly prove 
fatal. It is a substance that is constantly ac- 
cumulating in the blood, and if it is not as con- 
stantly removed it will speedily produce death. 
The process of breathing is but the instinctive 



VENTILATION AND LONGEVITY. 245 

effort of nature to free herself from the presence 
of this poison. But air which has once been in 
the lungs, will no longer perform this office, 
being already saturated with carbonic acid. 
Hence the necessity of inhaling fresh air at 
every breath. The importance of this was 
illustrated by Dr. South wood Smith, who said : 
" Stop the respiration of an animal, or confine 
it to air which has already been respired, and 
carbon accumulates in the venous blood and 
mixes with the arterial blood. In half a minute 
the blood flowing in the arteries is evidently 
darker; in three quarters of a minute it is of a 
dusky hue, and in a minute and a half it is 
quite black. Every particle of arterial blood 
now disappears, and the whole mass becomes 
venous, sensibility is abolished, the animal falls 
down, and in three, or at most in four minutes, 
the heart entirely ceases its action, and can 
never again be excited." Now, if effects are 
proportioned to their causes, and if an atmos- 
phere impregnated with five per cent — or one 
twentieth part of its volume — of carbonic acid, 
will thus produce death in a few minutes, what 
must be the probable effect of breathing, for 
twenty or forty years, even the much minuter 

21* 



246 SLEEP. 

proportions which must be present in every in- 
habited room where there is not a constant in- 
gress * and egress of air ? It must lower the 
standard of health and shorten the duration of 
life. But not only is the air in a close room 
thus constantly being impregnated with car- 
bonic acid gas to the amount of about twenty- 
eight cubic inches per minute for each adult 
man occupying such room, but there is also, ac- 
cording to the best authorities, constantly being 
discharged by the lungs and pores of the skin, 
an equal amount, by weight — that is, about 
three or three and a half pounds in twenty-four 
hours — of effete, decaying animal substance, 
in the form of insensible vapor, which we often 
see condensed in drops upon the windows of 
crowded rooms and railroad-cars. Those drops, 
if collected and evaporated, leave a thick, putrid 
mass of animal matter. The breathing of these 
exhalations is believed to be quite as efficient 
in producing disease as carbonic acid itself. 
But there is still a third deterioration produced 
in the air by respiration, and that is, the loss of 
its oxygen. Oxygen is the vital and life-sup- 
porting principle of the air, and it is found that, 
when the air enters the lungs, the blood absorbs 



AIR "OF €LOSE rooms. 247 

about forty per cent of the oxygen which it 
contains. It is upon this we live ; and the air 
that is exhaled being deficient by almost one 
half in this vital element, of course can no 
longer support life. And as we inhale about 
five hundred cubic inches of air every minute, 
we of course deprive that quantity of air of 
forty per cent of its oxygen each minute. The 
Creator has provided for the constant and com- 
plete removal of these poisonous exhalations by 
eausing the expired air to rise, by its increased 
w T armth and consequent levity, quickly above 
our heads and beyond the reach of a second in- 
halation, and by sweeping it away by the winds} 
but by our impervious ceilings and tight walls, 
we obstruct the operation of this beneficent 
law, and prevent these poisonous exhalations 
from escaping. Hence the air of a close room, 
though occupied but by a single person, becomes, 
from the very first moment of occupancy, im- 
pregnated with, these impurities, which accu- 
mulate more and mor3, the longer it is occupied 
without ventilation, and the more it is crowded 
It would certainly be difficult to over-estimate 
the importance to life and health of the purity 
of the air we breathe, and it would also be diffi- 



248 SLEEP. 

cult to determine to what period of duration 
human life might be prolonged, did we and had 
our ancestors always breathed a perfectly pure 
atmosphere. A most remarkable and convinc- 
ing illustration of the effects of the quality of 
the air we breathe upon health, is to be found 
in the experience of the armies of England and 
France during the late Eussian war. England, 
out of a total force of ninety -three thousand 
nine hundred and fifty -nine men engaged in the 
campaign in the Crimea, lost thirty-three thou- 
sand six hundred and forty -five, of which num- 
ber only only two thousand and fifty -eight were 
killed in action, and one thousand seven hun- 
dred and sixty-one died of wounds, while no 
less than sixteen thousand two hundred and 
ninety-eight died of disease at the seat of war, 
and about thirteen thousand were sent home on 
account of sickness, many of whom, no doubt, 
afterwards died. To every one taken to the 
hospitals on account of wounds, twelve were 
taken there on account of disease. The chief 
destroyer was typhus fever. M. Boudens, Sur- 
geon-in-Chief of the French army, in a letter 
written home during the war, says of this 
disease: "It is engendered by crowding and 



VENTILATION OF SCHOOL-ROOMS. 249 

want, either in hospitals, prisons, or on board 
of vessels. The disease may indeed be called 
forth and removed at will." And he adds: 
"The first remedy is pure air and powerful 
ventilation." The great mortality in the Eng- 
lish army was during the early period of the 
war. After the Sanitary Commissioners ar- 
rived and commenced their operations by secur- 
ing greater ventilation, the sickness was staid, 
and finally disappeared. The great panacea 
was fresh air. In the French army, where no 
sanitary reforms were introduced, the great 
mortality continued and increased, thus showing 
clearly that the changes made by the Sanitary 
Commissioners in the English army were the 
sole causes of the decrease of mortality where 
they labored. Eecurring again to the condition 
of our buildings here, the lecturer said : In our 
school-rooms the matter is still worse ; while in 
our railroad-cars we have actually less breath- 
ing room than the wretched prisoners in the 
Black Hole of Calcutta — they having had about 
forty cubic feet per man, while in our cars we 
have only an allowance of about thirty cubic 
feet. In addition to this, the lighting of our 
rooms in the evening is a source of great con- 



250 SLEEP. 

tamination to the air — each gas-burner being 
estimated to generate as much, carbonic acid gas 
as the respiration of four persons, or more than 
one hundred cubic inches per minute. Every 
gas-burner should have a ventilating tube to 
carry off the products of combustion, and con- 
vey them entirely out of the room, as is the 
case in the Houses of Parliament, and many 
other public and private buildings in England. 
In conclusion, he stated his belief, that* .by due 
attention to sewerage and ventilation, the mor- 
tality of this city would be decreased ten thou- 
sand every year. The lecture, which occupied 
about an hour in reading, was listened to with 
great satisfaction by all present. When the 
lecture was concluded, Dr. Harris stated that 
the next lecture would be delivered on Monday 
evening. 

"In answer to a call, Dr. Halliday referred to 
recent visits he had made to the houses in this 
city in which a number of families lived to- 
gether. He said that the Italian residents here, 
especially, were in the habit of living several 
families together, in one comparatively small 
room. He also mentioned that in a single block 
he found forty-five families, not a single one of 



BICHARDS ON VENTILATION. 251. 

whom had a child living. When he asked for 
their children, the answer generally was : l God ■ 
has taken them away to heaven.' This terrible 
infant mortality was caused by want of cleanli- 
ness and ventilation in their residences." 

The best, the ablest, and most successful 
weekly publication of its kind in the world, is 
the New- York Scientific American. One of its 
special correspondents, E. M. Eichards, jvrites on 
the same important subject of ventilation : 

"Many persons have remarked the languor 
and sleepiness that are apt to creep over them 
after sitting for an hour or so in a crowded 
church. Many persons refer this to other than 
the real cause — to dullness of the discourse, 
bodily derangement, etc. — while really, in most 
cases, it is solely to be attributed to a deficiency 
of vital air. On first commencing the religious 
services, the supply is generally sufficient ; but 
before the close, it becomes totally inadequate. 
Many sick stomachs and bilious headaches are 
thus inflicted on devout but physiologically ig- 
norant worshipers. 

" Our schools are little better than 'mephitio 



252 SLEEP. 

dens/ in wliicli the poor children are almost 
poisoned, and their brains stupified, by the im- 
purities they are obliged to take into their sys- 
tems through their lungs. Under these circum- 
stances it is equally impossible for the pupils to 
attend as well to their studies, and for the mas- 
ters to exhibit as much tact or patience in im- 
parting knowledge, as they would if they were 
placed under more favorable circumstances. So 
keen is the writer's remembrance of the miseries 
he endured from this cause, during his school- 
boy days, and so deep his conviction of the last- 
ing injury inflicted thereby, that, if compelled 
to choose between the two evils, he would pre- 
fer having his children to remain untaught all 
their lives than subject them to the same blood- 
corrupting process which he underwent. 

" The railroad-car, the ship, the steamboat, all 
give evidence of the presence of the same demon 
—foul air. A night's ride in some of our trains 
is enough to develop consumption in those pre- 
disposed to that disease. The climax of hor- 
rors, however, is reached in the crowded steam- 
ship, where, to an abundance of carbonic acid, 
are added stinking bilge- water, sea- sick passen- 
gers, fumes of cookery, oil and rancid tallow 



FOUL AIE OF CARS AND SHIPS. 253 

from the machinery, and all other abominations 
only to be found on ship-board. There is no 
nse in multiplying examples ; they are to be 
found on all sides, if we only look for them. 

" The following is a good test of the salubrity 
of any apartment : Let a healthy person, whose 
sense of smell is unimpaired, take a brisk walk 
in the open air, then come at once into the 
room, and if there is any close or other unpleas- 
ant smell, the atmosphere of that room is more 
or less hurtful. How many of our bed-cham 
bers could pass that ordeal in the early morn- 
ing, after being slept in during the night ? 

11 Having glanced at the prevalence of bad air 
and the evil consequences that always follow its 
habitual inhalation, the means whereby we may 
protect ourselves from it are now to be consid- 
ered. The theory of the whole thing is simple 
enough : the vitiated air must be removed as 
fast as produced, and pure air introduced (with- 
out intermixture) to supply its place. The 
practice, however, requires some little care. It 
may be here stated that winter is the season in 
which people suffer most from defective ventila- 
tion, as the external cold makes them carefully 
close all the apertures in their rooms ; while, on 
99 



254 SLEEP. 

the contrary, in the summer, the heat obliges 
them to open them all. But ventilation is more 
easily effected during cold weather. We must 
be careful not to confound pure air with cold } or 
warm air with foul; this is a very common mis- 
take, and a very dangerous one, too ; for warm 
air may be quite pure, and cold air just the 
reverse. 

" To obtain proper, reliable ventilation, it will 
not do to trust to the doors, windows, or fire- 
places (should these latter exist) of our apart-: 
ments ; the first are for ingress and egress, the 
second to transmit light, and the last to pass the 
products of combustion from the fire into the 
open air. No doubt, in the absence of any 
better means, the rooms may be kept in a toler : 
ably wholesome condition by the free use of 
doors and windows, but not in such a perfect, 
pleasant, and economical manner as when 
proper apparatus is used to secure this result. 
As before stated, the breath exhaled from the 
lungs, being heated, rises rapidly to the highest 
portion of the room, where, if means for its 
exit are provided, it will at once (in most con- 
ditions of the atmosphere) pass out into the 
open air ; but if, as is the case in most build- 



BAD AIR OF ROOMS. 255 

mgs, public or private, there is no foul air- 
escape near the ceiling, the heated portion of 
air under consideration remains a short time 
suspended aloft ; then, as it becomes cooler, it 
descends lower and lower, till at last it mingles 
with the air near the level of the mouths of the 
occupants of the apartment. Should there be 
an open fire-place, the foul air, having descend- 
ed from the ceiling, generally escapes in great 
part up the chimney ; having first come below 
the level of the mouth, even of a seated person. 
This fact is especially to be noted, as showing 
that an open fire-place very indifferently sup- 
plies the place of a regular foul H air-escape. 
Some of it may also, in certain states of the ex- 
ternal atmosphere, pass out at the crevices over 
the tops of the windows and the top of the 
door, supposing them to be closed, as they gen- 
erally are in winter ; but if they are open, of 
course the case is not so bad. Now, to supply 
the place of this out-passing vitiated air, fresh 
air usually comes in through any cracks or 
openings that it can find at or near the level of 
the floor ; and in cold weather, if there is a fire 
burning in the apartment, the external air will 
pour in at any opening it can find, high or low. 



256 SLEEP. 

It is evident that, under these circumstances, 
the in-coming fresh and out-going foul air be- 
come more or less intermingled, so that it is 
impossible for the inmates to breathe any but a 
partially impure element. Opening the win- 
dows in winter, though preferable to being 
poisoned with noxious gases, is objectionable, 
as it causes sudden drafts of very cold air, and 
thus may injure invalids, besides being unpleas- 
ant to those in robust health ; and, moreover, it 
only somewhat remedies the evil. In cases 
where there are no fire-places, if it were possi- 
ble to construct rooms perfectly air-tight, (and 
the best mechanics always leave their work the 
freest from flaws and cracks,) there could be no 
in-coming or out-going draft in a chamber of 
this kind ; in a very little time it would be im- 
possible to exist, so rapidly would the noxious 
gases accumulate. It thus appears that, for the 
ability to remain in such a room without abso- 
lute and immediate danger to life, we have to 
thank the bad joints, crevices, and holes left 
about windows and doors by the defective work 
of the house-carpenter. Certainly, we of the 
nineteenth century have not much reason to 
boast of our advances in the art of house-build- 



VITIATED ATMOSPHERE. 257 

ing when we thus construct our dwellings. It 
is not many centuries since there were no chim- 
neys to the abodes of the great and wealthy ; a 
huge fire was kindled in the middle of the large 
room where the baron and his family lived, the 
smoke and soot from which fire was allowed to 
make its escape in the best way it could through 
an aperture contrived in the roof. The discom- 
forts of an apartment thus warmed can hardly 
be over-rated. 

" We may, perhaps, laugh at the rude habits 
and the little knowledge of c household science ' 
that could tolerate such a state of things ; quite 
forgetting that we are just as far behind, in not 
providing for the exit of the poisonous products 
of respiration. If we have improved on our 
forefathers in one respect, we have gone back 
in another ; for the aforementioned opening in 
the roof, though inferior to the modern chimney 
for passing the smoke, provided a much better 
outlet for the other exhalations of the spacious 
hall below." 

The Philadelphia Bulletin remarks, in the 
same direction : 

" Human nature is skeptical concerning that 
22* 



258 SLEEP, 

which it can not see. If every body could see 
foul air, if it was as palpable as foul water, men 
would no more breathe it as they do, than they" 
now drink the water of a green and stagnated 
pool. It is odd how slowly a plain truth works 
its way when it has the disadvantage of being 
new. Even architects, who ought to understand 
their business, will build houses, public halls, and 
churches, without an intentional crevice for 
ventilation. We remember that an old gentle- 
man in one of our boroughs was the laughing- 
stock of the town because he ventilated his par- 
lor. And in great rooms, built for the purpose 
of accommodating thousands, there will some- 
times be little or no provision for discharging 
the foul air which is poisoning the people. 

" But the greatest imposition that we know 
of, in this regard, is the condition of the cars on 
the great railway lines in the winter. Imposi- 
tion, we say, because while the going to a lec- 
ture or concert in a public hall is voluntary, it 
is often a necessity of travel. Two large stoves 
heated red hot with anthracite coal, are placed 
in a space of say fifteen feet wide and ten feet 
high. This space contains about eighty people, 
and is closely shut up. The stoves use up 



BAD AIR OF RAIL-CARS. 259 

oxygen with great rapidity, and what is left is 
breathed over and over again by the eighty 
people, who are giving out from their lungs, 
constantly, a gas utterly unfit to be breathed. 
Is it not incredible that upon roads conducted 
with the propriety, good sense, and acuteness, 
with which some of our good lines are managed, 
there is not wit enough to cut a few holes near 
the top of the car, to let out the foul air ? Gen- 
tlemen, presidents, superintendents, engineers, 
and conductors, pray have mercy on passengers ! 
We plead for the people with headaches, with 
nausea, and with a stifling sensation which 
forces them to sit in a draught with a car going 
twenty-five miles an hour, and the thermometer 
twenty degrees below freezing-point, at the risk 
of their life — or else endure slow poison." 

SUNLIGHT AS A VENTILATOR. 

But it must be remembered that the ventila- 
tion of no apartment is perfect without the aid 
of the blessed sunlight. 

" Sir James Wylie, late physician to i\ie Em- 
peror of Eussia, attentively studied the effects of 



260 SLEEP. 

"light as a curative agent in the hospitals of St. 
Petersburg ; and he discovered that the number 
of patients who were cured in rooms properly 
lighted was four times greater than of those 
confined in dark rooms. This led to a complete 
reform in lighting the hospitals of Russia, and 
with the most beneficial results. In all cities 
visited by the cholera, it was universally found 
that the greatest number of deaths took place 
in narrow streets, and on the sides of those 
having a northern exposure, where the salutary 
beams of the sun were excluded. The inhab- 
itants of the southern slopes of mountains are 
better developed and more healthy than those 
who live on the northern sides; while those 
who dwell in secluded valleys are generally 
subject to peculiar diseases and deformities of 
person. These different results are due to the 
agency of light, without a full supply of which 
plants and animals maintain but a sickly and 
feeble existence. Eminent physicians have ob- 
served that partially deformed children have 
been restored by exposure to the sun and the 
open air. As scrofula is most prevalent among 
the children of the poor, this is attributed by 
many persons to their living in dark and con- 



VALUE OF SUNLIGHT. 261 

fined houses ; such, diseases being most common 
among those residing in underground tenements. 

" The health statistics of all civilized coun- 
tries have improved greatly during the past 
century. This may be justly regarded as due 
to the superior construction of houses, by ad- 
mitting more light into them. The old- 
fashioned houses -were built with narrow, 
dwarfish windows, and as glass, until within 
recent years, was very dear, its application to 
windows was proportionally limited. Dwellings 
of the present day are generally built with 
windows of four times the dimensions of those 
belonging to the olden times; and the streets 
of our cities (upon which houses depend so 
much for their light) are made much wider 
than those of a past age. Light is now more 
valued, for its influence is better understood 
than was the case fifty or one hundred years 
ago ; and the most gratifying results have fol- 
lowed. But we are not at the end of city im- 
provements yet ; and it is felt, in almost all our 
cities, that if the streets (even the broadest of 
them) were twice their present width, a general 
benefit would be the result." 

* The following fact," says a good authority, 



262 SLEEP. 

" lias been established by careful observation : 
That where sunlight penetrates all the rooms 
of a dwelling, the^ inmates are less liable to 
sickness, than in a house where the apartments 
lose its health-invigorating influences. Base- 
ment-rooms are the nurseries of indisposition. 
It is a gross mistake to compel human beings to 
reside partially under ground. There is a de- 
fective condition of the air in such rooms, con- 
nected with dampness, besides the decomposing 
paint on the walls, and the escape of noxious 
gases from pipes and drains. It is strange that 
builders persist in doing violence to humanity,, 
by still erecting houses with basements." 

In. continuation of the same subject, that 
beautiful and lovable character, Florence 
Nightingale, observes of 

THE MANIA FOR DARK ROOMS. 

American women have a strange mania for 
dark rooms, but hear what Florence Nightin- 
gale, in her Notes on Nursing, says orkthe sub- 
ject: " A dark house is almost always an un- 
healthy house, always an ill-aired house. Want 
of light stops growth, and promotes scrofula, 



DARK BOOMS MISCHIEVOUS. , 263 

Tickets, etc., among the children. People lose 
their health in a dark house, and if they get ill, 
they can not get well again in it. Three out of 
many ' negligences and ignorances ' in manag- 
ing the health of houses generally, I will here 
mention as specimens: First, that the female 
head in charge of any building does not think 
it necessary to visit every hole and corner of it 
every day. How can she expect those who are 
under her to be more careful to maintain her 
house in a healthy condition than she who is in 
charge of it ? Second, that it is not considered 
essential to air, to sun, and to clean rooms while 
uninhabited ; which is simply ignoring the first 
elementary notion of sanitary things, and lay- 
ing the ground ready for all kinds of diseases. 
Third, that the window, and one window, is 
considered enough to air a room. Don't 
imagine that if you who are in charge don't 
look to all those things yourself, those under 
you will be more careful than you are. It ap- 
pears as if the part of the mistress was to com- 
plain of her servants, and to accept their 
excuse — not to show them how there need be 
neither complaints made nor excuses." 



261 . SLEEP. 

A SUNNY WRITER IN A 'PLEA 
FOR THE LITTLE ONES." 

"Let the warm weather come! Let your 
children, amuse themselves out of doors. Don't 
keep them shut up like house-plants, until they 
become as pale and as thin as ghosts. Strip 
off the finery, put on coarse garments, and turn 
them out to play in the sand — to make l mud- 
cakes' — to daub their faces with any thing of 
an ' earthy nature,' which will have a ten 
dency to make them look as though they had 
entered into a co-partnership with dirt. Keep 
them in the house, and they will soon look 
like, and be of about as much value as a potato 
which grows in the cellar — pale, puny, sickly, 
sentimental wrecks of humanity. Turn them 
out, we say, boys and girls, and let them run, 
snuff the pure air, and be happy. Who cares 
if they do get tanned ? Leather must be 
tanned before it is fit for use, and boys and 
girls must undergo a hardening process, before 
they are qualified to engage in the arduous 
duties of active life. Let the sun come into 
our dwellings, and let our chambers be on the 
sunny side of the house. All know that a 



THE BLESSED SUNSHINE. . 265 

north light is cold, searching, and unsenti- 
mental, and tries both complexion and the 
heart; it reveals gray hairs, and the first 
faint footprints of the bird of ill-omen in the 
corners of the eyes with appalling distinctness. 
The flowers of the carpet are duller, for it has 
not a tint to lend ; except the light of early 
morning, nothing is less complimentary than a 
northern aspect. 

" But a room* that the sun is not permitted to 
look into at all, should be without a door ; it is 
unfit for human occupancy. Even the flowers 
will grow pale, and be frightened to death in 
it. The primary object of a window is not for 
the sons of men to look out, but for the sun to 
look in. 

" Pleasant sunshine not only brightens a 
man's buttons, but his heart; it makes his 
spirit as cheerful as the landscape. He can not 
live and be happy — he can not be happy with- 
out it. 

11 White is not beauty, any more than a melan- 
choly blue is the l color of virtue,' and yet the 
insane dodging of the sun has its origin in some 
such optical delusion. We catch school-girls 
eating chalk and drinking vinegar to. render 

23 



266 sleep. 

themselves pale and interesting. Next to an 
inky skin, they dread a rich brown cheek, and 
a brow that the sun has pressed as pure a kiss 
upon as the mellifluous lips of Israel could give. 
1 'More windows in the sunny side of our dwell- 
ings, more living in the open air ; less fear of 
an unclouded and parasolless sun, and more 
bold, free exercise, would kindle a true, coun- 
try, milkmaid-glow upon cheeks as chalky as 
the cliffs of Dover, and let a little sunshine into 
the shady corners of many a heart. Light, 
daylight, was not made merely to see by and 
warm by, but to grow bright and glad in } and 
that beam of a clear, autumn morning has failed 
to reach its destination that has not shone into 
the spirit, and burnished the thought, as it has 
brightened the eye.' 7 

OUT-DOOR LIFE. ' 

"Just as that poetry is the freshest which 
the out-door life has the most nourished, so I 
believe that there is no surer sign of the rich 
vitality which finds its raciest joys in sources 
the most innocent, than the childlike taste for 
that same out-door life. Whether you take 
from fortune the palace or the cottage, add to 



AVERAGE OF OUT AKD IN-DOOR LIFE. 267 

your chambers a hall in the courts of Nature. 
Let the earth but give you room to stand on ; 
well, look up. Is it nothing to have for your 
roof-tree — heaven? Breathe fresh air if you 
wish to live long. In New-England, farmers, 
who pass their days out of doors, live to an 
average of sixty-four years. The average age 
of persons who have in-door occupation is, in 
Massachusetts and Ehode Island — Shoemakers, 
forty-three; tailors, forty -two and a half; drug- 
gists, jewelers and teachers, from thirty -nine to 
forty ; machinists, thirty-eight and one quarter ; 
printers thirty-six and a half. Fresh air, there- 
fore, almost doubles a man's life, while it more 
than doubles his capacity for enjoyment." 

IN-DOOR LIFE. 

" Sitting-rooms, school-rooms, sleeping-rooms 
— every place occupied by human beings, should 
be well ventilated. In a school-room, for ex- 
ample, thirty feet square and eight feet high, 
there are seven thousand and two hundred cubic 
feet of air. Such a room will seat sixty pupils, 
and allowing seven cubic feet of air per minute 
to each person — the least allowed by any phy- 
siologist — all will be vitiated in less than 



268 SLEEP. 

eighteen minutes. And as all the blood in 
the human system traverses the whole breath- 
ing surface of the lungs in about two and a 
half minutes, every one who breathes such an 
impure atmosphere for two and a half mi- 
nutes, has every particle of his blood acted on 
by the vitiated air, making it less vital, less 
capable of repairing waste, and of carrying on 
the functions of life. And the longer such 
air is breathed, the more impure does it be- 
come, and the more corrupt the blood, and 
the more surely does it lay the foundation for 
disease and death." 

TOWN AND COUNTRY AIR. 

The relative difference between the out 
and in-door air of any locality, in favor of 
the greater purity of the former, is not more 
decided than what exists between the air 
of the country and that of the city, which 
may in large part be regarded as one of 
the reasons for the greater healthfulness of 
those who live in the country. That coun- 
try air is the purer, is curiously shown by 



BAD AIR ANALYZED. 269 

an English gentleman who for several years 
has devoted his attention to the condition of 
the air of towns, and communicates to the 
London Athenceum the result of some of his 
experiments for ascertaining the amount of 
organic matter contained in the air of vari- 
ous localities. The process by which this 
is accomplished consists in finding how much 
of a solution of permanganate of soda will 
be decomposed by the amount of air. The 
process occupies about half an hour. There 
is as much difference between the back 
streets of a town and the air of a hilly 
district in the North of Lancashire as from 
one to twenty-two. In other words, there 
was found in the air of a close court twenty- 
two times more matter capable of decomposing 
the solution, than there was found in a free, 
hilly district. 

23* 



270 SLEEP. 

GAS-LIGHTS IN SICK-ROOMS. 
There is a cause of impurity in the atmos- 
phere of our dwellings where coal-gas is burn- 
ed, which demands attention, especially as 
many persons sleep with a small jet of gas 
burning all night, and it should be particularly 
noted in the sick-chamber, both for the sake of 

the watchers and the invalid. 
t 

"When gas is first generated from soft coal, it 
is combined with many deleterious ingredients. 
Investigation and experiment have by degrees 
found out the means of purifying it of its most 
objectionable and offensive combinations; but 
the best means of chemical purification yet 
found out, still leave some sulphurous com- 
pounds, which, when burned, yield sulphurous 
gas. Experiments prove that in burning one 
hundred cubic feet of London gas, seven and a 
half grains of sulphur are yielded in summer, 
and ten in winter, having pernicious effects on 
the human economy, as well as tarnishing the 



SEA-SHORE AST) MOUNTAIN" AIR. 271 

pictures, gilding, and furniture. It is scarcely 
doubted that means will be found, in the prose- 
cution of chemical experiments, which will 
still further purify the gases burned in our 
dwellings, 

Not only is there a marked difference be- 
tween the out and in-door air of any locality, 
and between the air of the town and that of 
the country, but also between the air of differ- 
ent localities in the country ; and the instincts 
of the people in all climes seem to have led 
them to the most healthful places. For exam- 
ple, it is every where known that the hill 
country and the sea-shore are healthful above 
all other localities; hence they are places of 
general resort during warm weather, and when 
epidemics prevaiL It has lately been ascer- 
tained, that an unfamiliar constituent of the 
atmosphere is found in greater abundance on 
the mountains and the sea - shore than else- 
where. This constituent is called "Ozone," 
which means an "odor," from the fact that 



272 SLEEP. 

where it is found in abundance a smell is 
perceptible, similar to that noticed at the 
"Anode," or positive surface in electrical 
operations. Very little is known, certainly, 
of its nature or properties, beyond the fact 
that it seems to abound in peculiarly healthful 
situations. 

RELATIONS OF AIR-AIR 
AND LIFE. 

Prof. E. Gr. Dalton shows that "the oxy- 
gen of the air is the great agent for renewing 
the blood, eliminating impurities, warming the 
body, and giving a healthy tone to all the vital 
powers. A full supply of pure air, then, is as 
essential to life and health as an adequate 
amount of unadulterated food. If stringent 
laws are made against manufacturing or selling 
unwholesome bread, which may be consumed 
two or three times a day, still more should 
health-officers and legislators make provision 
against impure air, which is drawn into the 
very life-blood eighteen times a minute. The 
extent, constancy, causes, and consequences of 



OXYGEN CONSUMED IN BREATHING. 273 

_ 

this poisoning process, should be well under- 
stood by all. 

t - The air becomes unfit for use in two ways — 
by the abstraction of oxygen, and by the intro- 
duction of deadly elements. From many and 
careful experiments it is found that each inspir- 
ation takes from the air about thirty-five per 
cent of oxygen, or seven per cent of the whole 
air, which lessens its natural quantity one and 
one third cubic feet in a minute, and during the 
same time one cubic foot is vitiated by exhaled 
carbonic acid. For the combustion of five 
pounds of Lehigh coal in an hour, six hundred 
feet of air must be withdrawn from a room, or 
ten feet per minute. This is safe, if air is 
copiously supplied ; if not, oxygen is dimin- 
ished, and foul gases are driven into the room, 
corrupting the air as in respiration. In the 
process of lighting, every cubic foot of coal-gas 
consumed takes from the air about two and a 
half feet of oxygen, and produces two feet of 
carbonic acid. A burner consuming one cubic 
foot per hour, would spoil a hundred for breath- 
ing in the same time, or one and two thirds 
feet per minute. Add to these agencies the 
exhalations from the skin, polluting two or 



274 SLEEP. 

three feet per minute, and we have before us 
the startling fact that a single person in a close 
room, with a furnace and light, renders six 
or eight feet of air unfit for use every minute. 
How appalling, therefore, in crowded halls, 
over-heated, brilliantly illuminated, and badly 
ventilated, must be the consequences to the 
unthinking multitude who draw in the seeds 
of death at every breath ! 

1 ■ The results, in general, are, nature's supplies 
are cut off, the vital powers famish, and poisons 
are introduced to obstruct the feeble action 
which remains. The recuperative powers of 
the body are thus weakened, and the noble 
framework of man becomes the peculiar soil of 
contagious and chronic affections. Cholera 
works its way most mortally among the inmates 
of filthy and un ventilated apartments. The air, 
corrupted by marsh or typhoid miasma, induces 
the various types of fevers. A ' truly scrofu- 
lous disease' is supposed to be caused by a 
vitiated air. And l consumption is/ too often, 
but ' scrofula localized in the lungs/ originating 
in impure air. Blanketing and curtaining in- 
fants from the life-giving breezes of heaven are 
a more efficient cause of their mortality ^han 



CONNECTION OF AIR AND THOUGHT. 275 

parental vices or destitution. The per centage 
of deaths in New- York is greater than in Phila- 
delphia, because there are more underground, 
crowded apartments, whose inmates are poisoned 
by noxious gases, and from which deadly efflu- 
via ascends to loftier habitations. 

" The results of vitiated air on the mind are 
as palpable and awful as on the body. If the 
brain, the organ of thought, is supplied with 
unvitalized blood, the order and activity of the 
mind's thoughts can not be sustained. Hence 
all school and study rooms should be amply 
supplied with pure air. Bad air ' takes off the 
chariot- wheels ' of thought, pinions the wings 
of imagination, bewilders reason, dissipates 
memory, makes a general wreck of the intel- 
lect, and distracts all the passions and instincts 
of man's nature." 

" Few persons," says another writer, " imagine 
that their lungs are inseparable from their 
thoughts. Not that the pulmonary structures 
and functions occupy the heart of thoughts ; but 
that as a man inspires the physical atmosphere, 
so does his mind conduct itself as to thinking, 
willing, and wishing. For example : If a hu- 
man being should be imprisoned in a small 



276 SLEEP. 

room, not properly ventilated, and not replen- 
ished with fresh air from without — so that his 
breathing would be confined to the same atmos- 
phere for a great number of hours each day — - 
the consequence would unmistakably be ex- 
hibited in the mental operations of the victim. 
He would think in a circle, because he would 
breathe in a circle, and his digestion would be 
imperfect. His thoughts could not bound 
cheerily over the landscape, because the atmos- 
phere of the landscape would not enter his lungs. 
Physicians and patients are habitually imagin- 
ing that a ' change of scene ' is the secret of ben- 
efit in many cases of nervous prostration. Al- 
though there is truth in this impression, yet it 
is far from divulging the whole cause of the 
salutary results that sometimes follow pilgrim- 
izing away from home in quest of health. 
When once the real secret is intelligently known, 
and when the knowledge accruing therefrom is 
promptly applied by the possessors, then may 
the multitudes of sick ones save themselves the 
fatigue and expense of journeys. If you wish 
to travel for recreation, first get a stock of 
health to sustain you, in the shape of Air, Light, 
and Electricity. 



THE BBEATH OF LIFE. 277 

" The shortest route to firm health is through 
the lungs and nerves, which supply them and 
the stomach. Small lungs — small minds ; or, 
large lungs and bad air — large minds and few 
thoughts." 

THE* BREATH OF LIFE. 

Adam did not become a " living soul," did 
not assume humanity, did not become a human 
being, as we are, and in the full sense of the 
term, until the breath of life was introduced 
into his body ; nor does the unborn being be- 
come " alive" until the external atmosphere 
has been introduced into the lungs through the 
nostrils. " And the Lord God formed man 
from the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath of life, and man became 
a living soul." (Genesis 10 : 7.) The human 
machinery is never set in full and perfect mo- 
tion until the air lights up the fires of life. And 
imponderable and viewless as that air is, its 
agency is necessary to sustain life. Men say 
that food strengthens and nourishes them ; but 
24 



278 SLEEP. 

it gives no strength, imparts no nourishment, 
until the air has acted upon it. We sit down 
to a dinner ; in five hours, what we ate has 
been converted into a homogeneous substance 
called " chyme;" it then passes out of the sto- 
mach into the smaller intestines, and becomes a 
sweetish milky fluid, in which state it is ab- 
sorbed and carried into the heart, into which it 
falls the moment the blood falls into it, which 
has come to it through the veins from its cir- 
cuit of the body, all which is impure and 
black. This black blood and light-colored nu- 
trient chyle are mixed together in the heart, 
and sent direct to the lungs, where it is contained 
'in numberless minute vessels or channels, the 
sides of which are so thin that the air breathed 
passes its life-giving virtues through the sides 
of these vessels, and is at once incorporated 
into the mixture of milk-like chyme and the 
impure black blood, and when these three meet, 
and not before, a transformation is effected with 
the rapidity of lightning ; the red blood of life 



LIFE IX THE BLOOD. 279 

is formed, and the very next instant, fall of 
nutriment and vitality, it passes back to the 
heart, to be instantaneously dashed to the 
remotest ends of the system, imparting instant 
animation, renovation, and strength to every 
fiber of the body ; and in proportion as the air 
is impure in quality or deficient in quantity, 
this strength, renovation, and animation are 
imperfect. Without air, pure and fresh, thus 
supplied to the lungs, in vain would we seek 
for rest and renewal in sleep on beds of down ; 
in vain look for manly vigor from the richest, 
purest food, and the best ever placed before a 
hungry man ! So that, whether in eating or 
sleeping, the pure air of heaven is essential to 
existence itself, essential to health of body and to 
activity of mind ; for it feeds, invigorates, and 
regenerates both, bringing us back to the felt 
necessity of having the purest air possible in 
our chambers, where we spend at least one third 
of our entire existence. 

It has been shown, then, that pure air and a 



280 SLEEP. 

plenty of it during the hours of sleep, is indis- 
pensable to our well-being ; that all adultera- 
tions of it tend to destroy health, and eventu- 
ally life itself ; that one of the most constant, 
general, and fruitful sources of atmospheric 
impurity, is found in the practice of two or 
more persons sleeping in the same bed, or in 
the same small room, and that consequently 
the habit should be abandoned in every case 
where it is at all practicable ; the reader being- 
charged to remember, however, that any neces- 
sity which may seem to exist for its contin- 
uance, does not alter the nature of the evil, or 
diminish its amount ; consequently, if it be in 
truth a necessity in any case, it is an unfortu- 
nate one. 

EXCESSIVE CHILD-BEARING. 

However numerous a household may be, 
the parent does not feel willing to spare any 
one of the children, and there is a prevailing 
sentiment, more pious than true, that if Provi- 
dence sends children, he will in some way pro- 



EXCESSIVE CHILD-BEARING. 281 

vide for them. It will not be denied that 
many children die of neglect and want ; the 
neglect arising from the criminality of parents, 
and the want from their idleness, improvidence, 
or unthrift ; and further inquiry will satisfy the 
reflecting, that whenever a family is overbur- 
dened with children, it is directly owing tp the 
fact that the parents have brought the evil on 
themselves by an unwillingness to observe a 
proper self-denial, the very key-stone of prac- 
tical Christian character ; precisely as it is the 
w£nt of self-denial which leads many into 
bankruptcy and degradation and crime, the 
self-denial which would have enabled them to 
have; lived within their means. That many a 
woman sinks into a premature grave as the 
result of bearing children too rapidly, and that, 
as a consequence, those she has left behind her 
are, in multitudes of cases, neglected, and g^ow 
up uncared for, to become a burden to socioty 
afterwards, is beyond denial. It is just as plain 
that these evils could have been prevented 
24* 



282 SLEEP, 

wholly, by a simple restraint on indulgence, 
and which the measures proposed in these 
pages would make comparatively easy of ac- 
complishment, as it is less difficult to resist 
hunger when food is not seen than when it is 
spread out before the eye and within easy 
reach. These suggestions will bear more con- 
sideration than the short space allowed them 
would seem to entitle them to, and they are not 
matters of minor importance, for they affect the 
happiness and well-being of those alive and of 
those yet unborn. Denials from two days 
before until eight after the periods, with a 
second's cold sitz-bath the instant after each 
occasion, are thought perfect efficients. 

CLOSE ROOMS AND CON- 
SUMPTION. 

It is stated on good authority that "in 
England one person in forty-five dies every 
year ; in France, one in forty-two ; in Austria, 
one in thirty-three, and in Eussia, one in twenty- 



COKSimPTIOlf FROM BAD AIR. 283 

eight. About one sixth of all the deaths in 
civilized countries are caused by consumption, 
and this notwithstanding the fact that in some 
countries it is absolutely unknown, and in 
others prevails very little. "Where it does pre- 
vail it is really 'the great destroyer.' One 
third of all the deaths in England are from 
tuberculous diseases. The advantages of the 
equable climate there are more than counter- 
balanced by the excessive humidity of the at- 
mosphere. More females than males die of it 
in some places ; more persons in sedentary and in- 
door life than among those of active out-door 
pursuits. The disease is scarcely known among 
the savage races of men. It prevails most and 
is most fatal in low situations, where the air is 
surcharged with moisture and is less frequently 
changed by the wind. In fine, all the facts go 
to show that the great cause of consumption is 
lack of pure and vitalizing air. 

" Miss Nightingale has such faith in the heal- 
ing and restorative powers of the air, that she 
makes a full and free supply of it, night and 
day, the first condition of successful hospital 
treatment. In the English, hospitals the space 
allotted to each bed is twenty-one hundred 



284 SLEEP. 

cubic feet, and Miss Nightingale insists that this 
is not sufficient for a single night without con- 
stant change by ventilation. If this be so, 
■what must be the effect of sleeping, as half the 
people in this country do, in little eight by ten 
bed-rooms, with the windows and doors tightly 
closed, and perhaps the heat of a furnace or 
stove for warmth besides, in the winter ? The 
French hospitals provide for the complete re- 
newal of the air of a sick-room every hour. 
"We sleep in about a thousand cubic feet of air 
for six or eight hours, without renewing it at 
all — and sometimes two or three persons in that 
confined space. The fetor of a chamber that 
has been thus occupied is a sufficient demonstra- 
tion of the unfitness of exhausted and stale air 
to be received into the lungs ; and the pallor, 
headache, and lassitude experienced in the 
morning by those who sleep in these close 
rooms show very clearly that the repose which 
should have renewed the vital powers has only 
been the occasion of poisoning them. What won- 
der that the lungs, denied their natural aliment, 
and fed on poisonous malaria, refuse to perform 
their functions and go to premature decay ! 
We have no doubt that this one sin against na- 



SLEEPING WITH CONSUMPTIVES. 285 

ture of sleeping in impure air is the great source 
of nearly all the lung diseases which sweep so 
many to early graves in what should be the 
bloom and vigor of life. The idea that the 
night-air is hurtful is a mere prejudice. It is 
the dead air of our sleeping-rooms, laden with 
foul animal matter, that poisons us, corrupts our 
blood, and destroys our vitality. 

" There are other minor causes of consump- 
tion, such as the breathing of air filled with 
dust or unwholesome vapors, as in some of the 
mechanic shops and chemical laboratories. But 
with a little ingenuity properly applied, most of 
these exposures might be obviated. Even so 
simple a thing as the carpet-sweeper, by pre- 
venting the filling of our rooms with fine dust, 
is a great relief to the lungs of the women of 
the household. Consumption is not considered 
contagious in the ordinary sense, but there can 
be no doubt that sleeping in a close room with 
a consumptive person is decidedly unhealthy, 
and the destruction of whole families by this 
disease may be quite as much due tc this as to 
any inherited pravity of blood." 

It may not be amiss still further to impress 



236 SLEEK 

the reader's mind with the truth that pure, 
fresh air is essential to health, and that the 
very existence of humanity is as much depend- 
ent on it as that of the fish on water. These 
impressions may be most agreeably and in* 
structively made by showing how pure air acts 
on the blood in the lungs, and by what laws 
these actions are regulated. 

The lungs themselves are a multitude of air- 
cells or bladders, of all sizes, from the twen- 
tieth part of an inch in diameter downwards. 
These are filled and emptied through the wind 
pipe and its branches at every in and out- 
breathing. These air-cells are made of the 
thinnest kind of membrane, on the sides of 
which multitudes of blood-vessels are spread 
out ; so while the blood-vessels are full of 
blood, the air-cells are full of air, the air pure, 
the blood full of impurities ; but the blood and 
the air never come in actual contact ; two mem- 
branes intervene, the membrane of the blood- 
vessels and that of the air-cells : nevertheless 



BLACK BLOOD. 287 

the life of the air passes into the blood as it 
were, and the death, the impurities of the blood 
are transferred to the air in the lungs, and the 
breath which was an instant before all purity, 
becomes in that instant so impure, that it is 
utterly destitute of sustenance ; so much so, 
that if re-breathed the moment it passes from 
the mouth, without any admixture of other air, 
immediate suffocation would be the result. It 
is known by actual observation, visual inspec- 
tion, that when the blood goes to the lungs it is 
dark-colored, called " black blood;" on coming 
from the lungs it is of a bright, sparkling red, 
and that if a person does not breathe, it remains 
black. The fair inference is, that this change is 
made by the air taken into the lungs at each 
breath, and it is easy to see that this change of 
death-blood into life-blood is more or less per- 
fect according to the purity of the agency 
which effects it ; that is, according to the purity 
of the air. And so necessary is it that this 
change should take place, that if it is inter- 



288 SLEEP. 

rupted for a single minute, we die. For a few 
minutes an impure air may not make any very 
decided change in the bodily feelings or condi 
tions ; but if it is continued during the sleeping 
hours, which amount to one third of our lives, 
its effects must be as pernicious as they are 
wide spreading. Hence the reasons for the sug- 
gestions of these pages, the design of which is 
to use all practicable means for furnishing a 
pure air to sleepers, and to remove all the 
causes, which it is practicable to do, of deterior- 
ation, of which small and crowded sleeping- 
apartments are among the chief. 

But to show more clearly that the air which 
is breathed into the lungs is the agent of blood 
purification and of attendant health and vigor, 
it is further proven as follows : If the black 
blood of an animal is put into a bladder the 
moment it is drawn, and the bladder is sus- 
pended in a cool, pure atmosphere, the blood 
next the membrane will soon be seen to be 
changing to a redder color. This is explained 



POISON MADE IN SLEEPING. 289 

by the fact that the air is composed of two con- 
stituents — oxygen and nitrogen — the former is 
the life-giving principle, the latter contains no 
life whatever, so that it is the oxygenical con- 
stituent of the atmosphere which renovates the 
blood. Again, the principal constituents of the 
impurities of the blood are carbonic acid and 
water. All substances in nature have their 
likes and dislikes, their affinities and their re- 
pulsions. The affinities seek each other, the re- 
pulsions stand off or retire. The oxygen of the 
atmosphere has such a liking, such an affinity 
for the blood, that it breaks down, as it were, 
the thin barriers of the air-cells and blood- 
vessels, and is embraced, absorbed by the blood. 
On the other hand, the carbonic acid con- 
tained in the blood has such an affinity for the 
nitrogen of the atmosphere which was left be- 
hind, all alone in the lungs by the oxygen, that 
it also rushes from the blood-vessels, dashes 
through the two thin membranes into the arms 
of the nitrogen, forming the union so well 
25 



290 SLEEP. 

known under the name of " bad breathy and 
the more impure the blood is, the greater the 
degree of that bad breath. 

The curious reader will find an analogous 
exhibition of the more hidden properties of 
matter, of chemical affinities, by leaving a mix- 
ture of alcohol and water in an uncorked bottle j 
the alcohol having a greater affinity, a greater 
liking for the air than the water has, begins 
at once to pass out of the bottle and mingle 
with the air of the room, as will be known by 
the odor of the apartment, and will continue to 
pass out until there is nothing left in the bottle 
but the water. But fill another bottle with a 
similar mixture, and place a thick membrane 
over the mouth ; in a few days all the watei 
will be gone, while the alcohol remains. These 
experiments illustrate the doctrine of chemical 
affinities, by the laws of which the air we 
breathe has such an important influence in pu- 
rifying the blood, thus giving strength to the 
body, vigor to the brain, and purity to the 



CHEMICAL AFFINITIES. 291 

heart ; and to stint ourselves for a third of our 
entire existence in the supply of agencies upon 
which these all-important characteristics de- 
pend, is " unwise, unnatural, and degenerative." 
Another illustration of this doctrine of chem- 
ical affinities is found in the experiments of 
Lewis, of London, in the examination of the ex- 
terior of twenty- two thousand leaden coffins, 
and the contents of a large number in the church- 
vaults of the British metropolis, showing " that 
nitrogen and carbonic acid gases, holding animal 
matter in suspension, unperceived, but steadily 
penetrate through, and escape from the pores of 
leaden coffins, and disappear in the air ; so that 
by the end of fifty or one hundred years, noth- 
ing but dry bones remain ; and this escape may 
go on, though the coffins are uninjured. It is a 
rather ghastly thought that, of so many coffins 
breathing out their contents to mix with the 
air of the world overhead ; and the merry Lon- 
doners breathing in the sublimated remains of 
friends and progenitors, supposed all the while 



292 SLEEP. 

to be, ' after life's fitful fever,' sleeping well ! 
Another authority, Mr. K. V. Tuson, believes 
that in many instances there is a corrosion of 
the leaden coffins from "within, forming a pecu- 
liar anhydrous carbonate of lead, and often 
destroying the leaden plates to a mere shell. 
Both recommend a discontinuance of burial- 
cases of this material." 

CHAMBERS FOR THE SICK. 

Florence Nightingale, after a wide per- 
sonal observation and experience, says of the 
rooms which, the sick occupy : 

"It is very desirable that the windows in a 
sick-room should be such, that the patient shall, 
if he can move about, be able to open and shut 
them easily himself. In fact, the sick-room is 
very seldom kept aired if this is not the case — 
so very few people have any perception of what 
is a healthy atmosphere for the sick. The sick 
man often says: l This room, where I spend 
twenty-two hours out of twenty-four, is fresh- 
er than the other, where I only spend two. 



FL0KENCE NIGHTINGALE. 293 

Because, liere I can manage the windows 
myself.' And it is true. 

" Do you ever go into the bed-rooms of any 
persons of any class, whether they contain one, 
two, or twenty people, whether they hold sick 
or well, at night, or before the windows are 
opened in the morning, and ever find the air 
any thing but unwholesomely close and foul ? 
And why should it be so ? And of how much 
importance is it that it should not be so ? Dur- 
ing sleep the human body, even when in health, 
is far more injured by the influence of foul air 
than when awake. Why c^n't you keep the 
air all night, then, as pure as the air without, in 
the rooms you sleep in? But for this, you 
must have sufficient outlet for the impure air 
you make yourselves, to go out ; sufficient inlet 
for the pure air fiom without, to come in. You 
must have open chimneys, open windows, or 
ventilators; no close curtains round your beds; 
no shutters or curtains to your windows ; none 
of the contrivances by which you undermine 
your own health, or destroy the chances of 
recovery of your sick." 

As proof, if more is needed, of the impure 
state of the atmosphere of a chamber, or, in- 
25* 



294 SLEEP. 

deed, any inhabited room, the fact is given, 
that a pitcher of ice-water placed therein, will 
absorb all the gases of the apartment by its 
power of condensing, and, as it were, attracting 
them by its greater coldness, and thus becomes 
too filthy for use. A single pint of water will 
absorb a pint of carbonic acid gas and several 
pints of ammonia without increasing its bulk, 
and carbonic acic gas and ammonia are the 
constituents, in great part, of the air that comes 
direct from the lungs; hence, while ice-water 
purifies the air of a chamber or sitting-room, it 
becomes utterly unfit for drinking or cooking 
purposes, or even for washing the face and 
hands. These things being true, water which 
has stood exposed in any human habitation for 
a single half-hour is too disgusting for use 
whether for drinking or cooking. In fact, 
stagnant water anywhere begins on the instant 
to become corrupt. 

Nothing containing moisture should be al- 
lowed to remain in an inhabited room. Be- 
cently, a gentleman in perfect health, without 



POISONOUS ROOMS, 295 

exposure of any sort, became suddenly nausea- 
ted in the middle of his meal, and remaining so 
without improvement, notwithstanding entire 
abstinence from food, he concluded the cause 
of it remained in existence and on close inves- 
tigation, ascertained that a paste-cup had been 
inadvertently left in his sitting apartment, emit- 
ting a most sickening odor. An analogous 
case occurred in England. In eighteen hun- 
dred and fifty-four, a man in perfect health was 
placed in a room in London, and in a few days 
died of putrid fever, The next, and the next, 
and the next occupant became successively ill. 
At length, the authorities ordered an examina- 
tion of the premises, when the cause was found 
in several pounds of paste and wallpaper 
which had been covered up out of sight, the 
decomposition in progress, throwing out the 
destructive gases. Another English house be- 
came so notoriously unhealthy that no one 
would live in it free of charge ; the cause was 
found in new paper having been pasted on the 
old for successive generations perhaps. 



296 SLEEP.- 

LIGHT AND AIR. 

It is an encouraging sign of the times that 
the editorial mind of the country is waking up 
to the importance of breathing a pure atmos- 
phere. And for the sake of presenting an im- 
portant idea in every variety of phase, the 
various extracts have been given in the preced- 
ing pages, to which may be added another from 
the Boston Transcript : 

" Our parlors have become simply furniture 
warerooms ; not ' show-rooms ' even, for light 
is essential to a good show of any sort; they 
are mere places for the storage of carpets, 
pictures, and chairs that have cost money, and 
have, no doubt, a money value, but whose office 
is a sinecure, as far as making a comfortable 
home is concerned. On calling to see a friend, 
we are shown into an utterly dark and airless 
room. After a long time she appears, or some- 
thing appears, of which we can dimly discover 
the outline. If she is very amiable, she 
remarks, by way of conversation, i this room 
is rather dark,' and raises one of the various 
coverings of the window about an inch. There- 



CHEERLESS PARLORS. 297 

upon comes in a light streak of sickly hue, that 
makes the previous darkness more visible. 
You have the pleasure of hearing her voice, 
without the slightest notion of her color, 
expression, or looks generally. After you 
escape into the cheerful brightness of out of 
doors, she steps back into the room, drops the 
shade closely again, and trips up a darkened 
stairway into another dark room, there to sew, 
read or write, all the time straining her eyes to 
the utmost, in her efforts to see in the dark. 
Her eyes c trouble her very much ■ « — she ' has 
constant pain in her eyes and head ' — she has 
been to this oculist and to that, and has paid 
large sums of money, and ' is nothing better.' 
They all tell her one thing — she ' must rest her 
eyes' — she 'uses them too much/ and so on. 
No part of this is true, as she has never used 
her eyes in any good sense, though she has 
always abused them. About every third person 
of her acquaintance is affected in the same way, 
and 'Oh! dear, what can the matter be? 7 Hei 
grandmother — all their grandmothers in c point 
of fact' — at eighty-two, could sew the nicest 
and most exact seam, and read the finest print 
in the evening, with the aid of the usual glasses. 



298 SLEEP. 

She lived all her long life in rooms whose 
shutters were never closed save at night, and 
curtains of any kinds, there were none. The 
sun in her day did not harm the rich Turkey 
carpets that covered the floor, or the l portraits 
by Copley' that hung upon the wall. Her aunt, 
at seventy-one, can make as elegant a button- 
hole as eyes ever saw; can embroider muslin 
and cambric in beautiful style, and in fine, plain 
sewing has few equals. Her mother, at sixty, 
could see to mark her own name in full, 
eighteen letters, with her own hair, on the finest 
linen-cambric handkerchief; and, at sixty-nine, 
can do almost any thing that can be done with 
a needle, in the most workmanlike manner. 
These three ladies spent thirty years of their 
lives in full view of Boston harbor, and the 
use of a spy-glass was one of their almost daily 
recreations. These are not exceptional cases. 
Any lady can recall similar facts among the 
circle of her friends between the ages of sixty 
and eighty years. But our modern lady is 
4 troubled with her eyes ;' she has, in fact 
no soundness in her. From the crown of 
her head to the sole of her foot, she is a bundle 
of ailments, produced by broken laws. Horace 



VENTILATION OF CHAMBERS. 299 

Mann lias well said, that people who shudder 
at a flesh wound, or a tinge of blood, would 
confine their children like convicts, and compel 
them, month after month, to breathe quantities 
of poison. It can not but greatly impair the 
mental and physical condition of children, to 
send them to breathe, for six hours a day, 
the lifeless and poisoned air of some of our 
school-rooms. Let any man who votes for con- 
fining children in small rooms, and keeping 
them on stagnant air, try the experiment of 
breathing his own breath only four times over ; 
if medical aid be not at hand, the children will 
never be endangered by his vote afterwards." 

VENTILATION OF CHAMBERS. 

In cases where there are no windows which 
can be used for purposes of ventilation, or where, 
from any cause, the door must be kept closed, a 
fire, burning in an open fire-place, answers an 
admirable purpose. But if a fire makes a room 
oppressive, an artificial light should be kept in 
the fire-place — such as a candle or two, or a 
large lamp, or, better still, a jet of gas, conducted 



300 SLEEP. 

from an ordinary burner by means of a flexi- 
ble tube. By this expedient a considerable 
draft may be created through the fire-place and 
upwards at a small cost, and without adding to 
the heat of the apartment. This would be an 
admirable ventilator for sick-chambers ; and in 
cases not a few, would do more to promote res- 
toration to health than all medicines ; for pure 
air is the best convalescent in the world. 

VENTILATION OF DINING-ROOMS, 
DRAWING-ROOMS, AND FAMILY 

APARTMENTS. 

Any room, closed even for a night, whether 
in winter or summer, acquires a disagreeable 
closeness, perceptible on the instant of entering. 
Many drawing-rooms are not opened until ten 
or eleven o'clock in the morning, when, espe- 
cially in cities and large towns, passing vehicles 
have filled the atmosphere with dust, making it 
unadvisable to open the windows. In such 
cases, and others similar, the jet of gas in 



LOW-DOWN GKATES. 301 

the fire-place will answer a good purpose. But 
above all the devices which will answer most 
perfectly in warming single rooms, is the " Low- 
down Grate," patented several years ago by 
the Messrs. Andrews & Dixon, of Philadelphia, 
in reference to which, Hall's Jouenal of 
Health for October, two hundred and twenty- 
sixth page, volume seven, says : 

"In cheerful comfort there is nothing equal 
to a blazing wood- fire, on a commodious hearth. 
The very thought of it carries us backwards to 
days of unbridled gladness and joyous youth 
and genial sunshine. For purity of atmosphere 
and consequent healthfullness, there can be no 
superior to the old-fashioned fire-place, ' and- 
irons,' back-logs and fore-sticks, with the broad 
bed of flaming red coals ! 

"Next to the wood fire-place, is the ' Low- 
down grate,' of recent introduction, suitable for 
burning every kind of fuel ; wood, soft coal, 
anthracite, red ash, bituminous, Liverpool, 
Cannel, any thing. It is in reality a ' fire-place ;' 
the fuel is placed flat on the hearth, on a level 
with the floor, the jambs are broad and flaring, 
26 



c02 SLEEP. 

there is but little use for a 'poker or 'blower,' 
and hence no dust. The ashes fall through 
a grating into a receptacle which may be 
emptied daily, or are conveyed through an iron 
pipe into a close brick chamber in the cellar, to 
be removed once a year. By this contrivance 
the feet are easily warmed, and are kept so ; 
there is no danger of the coals falling on 
the floor or carpet, and the fire is made to burn 
more or less fiercely as easily as in an air-tight 
stove. This is written after a winter's trial. 
At an expense of less than three tons of coal, 
or two hundred and forty bushels, the thermom- 
eter on the wall opposite to the fire-place, in a 
room two hundred and fifty feet square and 
twelve high, was kept at sixty-five degrees 
when the mercury was in the neighborhood of 
zero without, the heat being derived from a 
broad bed of glowing coals over two feet long. 
These coals being on a level with the floor, keep 
the feet delightfully warm. The air for com- 
bustion is obtained from the cellar or the street ; 
hence the atmosphere of the room is simply 
pure air warmed, and has the genial heat of 
a wood-fire ; hence, also, there is none of the 
feeling of heaviness, sultriness, and oppression 



FIKE ON THE HEAKTH. 303 

which is instantly experienced on entering a 
furnace or stove-heated apartment. We cer- 
tainly feel that the perfection of house-warming 
in our country at present, is to have a low- 
down grate in each sitting apartment, while 
the extra heat is economized, to be thrown into 
chambers, sufficient to take off the chilliness or 
dampness when retiring or rising in the coldest 
weather. If families . are so constituted that 
there must be additional heat, at least in cases 
of sickness, or company, or extra severe 
weather, when it may be desirable to modify 
the atmosphere of the halls between the tem- 
perature of out-doors and that of the sitting- 
rooms, Andrews and Dixon's furnace answers 
the purpose most admirably, which, by being 
placed in the hall or cellar, and so contrived that 
the warm air given out can not come in contact 
with red-hot iron, supplies an atmosphere for 
breathing which is pure and exhilarating. 
Such was our practice last winter, the fire 
being kindled in the portable furnace in the 
lower hall only for seven days during the 
whole season, and these were, not at times 
when the weather was the coldest, because then 
the air was purest, driest, and most bracing, but 



304 SLEEP. 

for the days coming after the coldest ones, 
when there was an ugly damp chilliness in the 
air, which, by abstracting the heat rapidly 
from the body, produced a stronger impression 
of coldness than when the weather was twenty 
degrees colder, but still and dry, for it is not in 
the very coldest weather, when zero is hugged 
by the mercury, that l colds' are so much 
taken, but when the air is raw from being satu- 
rated with dampness. It is in thawy weather 
that furnaces should be heated up, if ever. By 
this arrangement there was scarcely a cold 
in the family, varying in age from five to seven- 
ty-five, during the whole winter. 

" The several sizes of the low-down grate 
are furnished and | slipped into the ordinary 
fire-place at a cost of from thirty to fifty dollars 
each, except when finished off with German 
silver and although these cost from ninety to 
a hundred and fory dollars each, Southern gen- 
tlemen are not deterred by the price, in conse- 
quence of the conviction of their superiority in 
the direction of healthfulness, cheapness, and 
their special adaptation to house-warming pur- 
poses where furnaces are never needed — where 
transient fires are so often desirable. 



ANDREWS AND DIXON'S GRATE. 305 

" A gentleman of taste and observation, 
near Natchez, having used these grates for sev- 
eral years, and is now building one of the 
finest residences in Mississippi, has introduced 
into it nineteen of these grates, six of which 
are of the costliest kind, as in his estimation 
nothing hitherto devised is equal to it, not only 
as regards a cheerful, balmy warmth, but for 
the purpose of a thorough ventilator, whether 
for the drawing-room, the parlor, or the cham- 
ber." 

As an evidence of intelligent appreciation of 
the low-down grate, nearly every prominent 
physician in Philadelphia uses one or more of 
them. As to durability, there is no reason 
why they should not last half a century, need- 
ing no repair the mean while, excepting that of 
replacing half a dozen fire-bricks in the course of 
years. Under all the circumstances it seems to 
be the perfection of house-warming, for up to 
this time it has not in any known instance failed 
to give comfort and satisfaction, and generally 
has exceeded expectation, and what is of un< 
26* 



306 SLEEP, 

thought of importance, an ordinary grate can 
be taken out, the low-down slipped in and be 
ready for use in half a day, winter or summer, 
unless in cases where the ashes are to be con- 
veyed into the cellar, when a longer time is 
required, several days perhaps. When the 
ashes are to be received into a pan and are not 
conveyed into the cellar, a blower is needed to 
kindle the fire. 

There is a growing disfavor against warm- 
ing houses by furnace heat. No plan has 
ever yet, in this country, overcome the well- 
taken objections to this method of heating 
family dwellings. It is costly, insufficient in 
very cold weather, especially in exposed 
situations; the furniture and the wood- work 
of the building itself is invariably injured, 
necessitating frequent repairs and renewals, 
and, more than all, an insufficient ventila- 
tion, with a close, oppressive and pernicious 
atmosphere prevails, which being heated, and 
the chambers being in the upper stories, the 



baker's house-warming. 307 

effect is to give the sleepers the ■warmest 
and most impure air in the whole estab- 
lishment. The grave objections to hot-water 
pipes have been already named, and are 
insuperable. Under these' circumstances, pub- 
lic attention has been directing itself to the 
application of steam, as a house-warming 
agent. It will perhaps be acknowledged by 
those best acquainted with the nature of 
steam, that it is capable of being made the 
most efficient, manageable, and economical of 
all agents yet known for communicating 
and distributing artificial warmth. It occu- 
pies the same superiority of position in the 
heating department that illuminating gas does 
in the department of artificial light. Being 
of about the specific gravity of gas, and of 
an elastic and volatile nature, it is peculiar- 
ly calculated to flow to the desired point, 
even through long and circuitous sections 
of small pipes. It expands seventeen hun- 
dred fold over the bulk of water from 



308 SLEEP. 

which, it is generated, and in returning to 
water, imparts one thousand degrees of heat 
to the air, which in water and in an un- 
condensed state would be latent and un- 
available. It admits of the most compact 
form, both as regards the space occupied 
for its generation, and the surface employed 
to heat the air. But to construct a steam- 
warming and ventilating apparatus which 
shall be simple and substantial, not liable 
to get out of repair, and entirely secure 
under the care of common domestics, is the 
great desideratum. William 0. Baker, of 
the House of Baker, Smith & Co., of New- 
York, has for a number of years directed 
his attention to the subject, and has pub- 
lished several monographs in reference to 
it. Under his auspices a manufactory has 
been established, and is now in successful 
operation, for the exclusive object of warm- 
ing and ventilating private dwellings by the 
agency, not of hot air nor of hot water 



baker's steam-heating. 309 

but of steam, which, has been hitherto 
looked upon as being only a motive power. 
In the hot-air furnace, which is the most 
common method for heating, the fire is not 
within the dwelling apartment, hence there 
is but one reservoir for. the heated air which 
is conducted by tubes to the different parts 
of the building. These tubes must be of 
different lengths, both in their horizontal 
and perpendicular courses, the longer lateral 
tubes sometimes not conveying any heat, 
while the shorter horizontal and the longer 
perpendicular ones may have the concen- 
trated heat of the whole furnace. Further, 
within one brick inclosure, there are the fur- 
nace with its red - hot heating surface, the 
fire, the ashes, the smoke, and all the 
noxious gases set free by the consumption 
of fuel, while the only intervening partition be- 
tween these and the hot air we are to breathe, 
is a single thickness of frail cast-iron, with 
the numerous joints, already opened by al« 



310 SLEEP. 

ternate expansion and contraction, to admit 
of the discharge of the above - named gases 
and other impurities into the air in process 
of heating, to be thence sent to the dif- 
ferent apartments to be breathed by the 
occupants. Bakers plan claims to obviate 
these objections by having several reservoirs. 
His boiler has a simple self regulating at- 
tachment which controls the draft and the 
accumulation of steam to a nominal pressure. 
This boiler, with its gases, ashes, cinders, 
etc., is located at some remote point from 
the warming surfaces, and from this, instead 
of one, there are several steam ducts lead- 
ing to the different warm - air chambers, 
which are in the cellars, but directly be- 
neath the registers or points of exit for 
the warm air to be conveyed into the dif- 
ferent apartments. Exterior air is supplied 
to the different warm-air chambers through 
one main trunk, branching off to the dif- 
ferent points. The temperature of the steam* 



WARMING BY STEAM. 811 

heated surface is ' always kept at one low 
unvarying point — that is, at about two hun- 
dred degrees, which is below the boiling point, 
instead of being from three hundred to two 
thousand degrees, as is the case with the 
hot - air furnace. The fire requires to be 
fed, to keep up an even supply of heat, 
but twice in twenty-four hours. A fresh 
fire will seldom need to be built. 

There are no valves or dampers whose 
adjustment depends upon the care and judg- 
ment of any one. Only the simple and all- 
important items of fuel and water are re- 
quired to be supplied. The supplying of 
these must, under any circumstances, be de- 
pendent on human intelligence. The habit 
of the common domestic in the kitchen, of 
supplying with punctilious regularity, every 
morning, the water to the tea-kettle, and the 
fuel to the stove, amply qualifies her to 
attend to this duty — no more skill, judg- 
ment, or trouble is required in one case 
than in the other. 



S12 SLEEP. 

The simple aot of shutting off or letting 
on the heat, by turning the registers, when- 
ever agreeable to the occupants of any part 
of the house, does, of itself, regulate the 
fire, the accumulation of steam, and the 
amount of air to be warmed. 

CROWDING, DEMORALIZATION 
AND DEATH. 

The Kev. H. "W". Warren, of Boston, in a 
valuable article on the intimate connection 
between "good morals /and good health," re- 
ports on good authority : " Of the children 
born on Beacon Hill, Boston, not one third as 
many die the first year, as of those born 
on Broad street, near Fort Hill. The former 
are the children of the richest people in the 
city; the latter, those of the poorest. The 
former have feeble constitutions, but good 
care and medical attendance ; the latter have, 
for the most part, rugged constitutions, but 
perish ; some for want of attention, some from 



CROWDING- DEMORALIZES. 313 

deliberate design. Carelessness and ignorance 
can not account for the vast disproportion of 
deaths among children born within a mile of 
each other. The state of morals has much 
to do with it. In one place, all is outwardly 
moral ; in the other, all is immoral, outwardly 
and inwardly. Children of passion have a 
perilous future. Passionate themselves, they 
contend with furious parents — a most unequal 
contest. Living evidences of shame, they 
are more the object of hate than of love. The 
tender care which they require, is displaced by 
unreported neglect and abuse, which no legisla* 
tive enactment can remedy. 

Immorality forms for itself all manner of 
destructive habits. Late hours come to be the 
rule, and seasonable retiring the rare exception. 
Intoxicating drinks follow, and, as a matter 
of course, treble crime, because they influence 
the passions, and bereft of reason, the victims 
find their gratification in haunts where consum- 
ing disease has made its home — the body is left 
27 



814 SLEEP. 

a wreck, the mind in ruins." Thus does the 
reader return to the proposition with which the 
subject opened — that crowding degrades indi- 
vidually, as in communities, weakens the body, 
impairs the mind, and corrupts the heart ; that 
roominess, with pure air and the blessed sun- 
light, elevates, energizes, and refines ; and these 
having been demonstrated, the boot may very 
appropriately here close, by merely addiDg that 
only the few will practically apply the sugges- 
tions of these pages. But there must be a be- 
ginning in all things. The time may come 
when higher principles will prevail ; when 
there will be more moral courage, more force 
of character, more strength of will ; when to a 
greater extent than has ever yet been seen in 
the world's history, the masses will act with a 
motive founded in wisdom, purity, and benevo- 
lence in the conduct of life ; when humane and 
generous and loving self-denials will be the 
rule, and selfishness and indulgence the rare, 
the very rare exceptions. May the good day 
coming speed on right quickly ! 



SLEEPING WITH OTHEES, ETC. 315 



ADDITIONS-SLEEPING WITH OTHERS, 
ETC. 

"While the first edition was passing through the 
press, the following case came under the author's 
attention : 

" My little son, eight years old, is lively and well 
in all respects, as far as I can judge, in the day, but 
at night he wakes up and screams in the most dis- 
tressing manner. He awakes frightened almost 
every night for a year. He has been subject to this 
for several years, but it is getting to be a distressing 
case. I almost dread to go to sleep. He sleeps with 
me, -and once every night, sometimes twice, he springs 
as quick as lightning, screams the most soul-piercing 
screams, and I take him in my arms, and he looks 
back, with horror on his face. I could not, unless 
you saw it, give you an idea of how distressing it is. 
He is strong and lively, playful, and full of fun and 
life, until he gets to sleep. This happens every night, 
and often it so shocks me I can not go to sleep for a 
long time. He takes dinner at one, supper at sun- 
down, of cambric tea with a piece of bread. All my 
other children are entirely different ; they are lively, 
hearty, and cheerful, and so is he, otherwise." 

The directions given were on the presumption that 
these effects in the child were caused by sleeping in 
the same bed with the father, habitually. In two 
months, the report was made that " he had not waked 
up frightened for a long time." The national troubles 
at this point put an end to the correspondence. It 
may be instructive to know under what bodily symp- 
toms the father had been laboring for some years, but 
whom the author succeeded in restoring to " better 
health than had been enjoyed for seven years." Age, 
thirty-seven; hight, five feet seven; broad-shoul- 



816 SLEEP. 

dered, dark skin, black eyes, and had remarkable 
health, strength, and activity, never having had 
any severe sickness; began to chew tobacco rave- 
nously, and became gradually very nervous, from 
one meal to another ; especially in summer, would 
become so exhausted as to scarcely be able to 
walk. The least excitement or agitation would 
keep him from eating enough to sustain his strength 
until the next iheal-time. Then came on chronic 
diarrhea, aggravated by any unusual intelligence, 
or shock of any description. "The least feel- 
ing like it, or appearance of loose bowels, com- 
pletely unmans me ; I can't help it ; and if I was 
very hungry or exhausted, the occurrence of any 
looseness kills my appetite. I can not help being 
alarmed at any symptom of diarrhea, for it has used 
me up long ago. I am greatly depressed in spirits 
from the sympathy incident to planning for and 
nursing my children, and solicitude for them in sick- 
ness, for these ten years. My wife is an angel of 
goodness to me, and I have every reason to be a 
happy man. Please don't say any thing that might; 
have a tendency to depress me. As soon as I get 
the least hungry, I become weak and nervous, and 
the same if there is any cause for anxiety or excite- 
ment. Coffee is poison to me ; two swallows would 
distress my head and make my ears feel as if water 
were in them ; at the same time there is a feeling of 
wanting to draw a long breath. If I talk much, or 
read aloud at times, I feel as if I had been violently 
blowing up a fire. Hot weather is ruinous to me." 
It was in August, when the thermometer had been 
ranging at one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, that he 
wrote of the great improvement in his health. This 
man's nervous system had been so impaired, and his 
general health so poor, that it is not to be wondered 
at if a young child sleeping with him constantly 



SLEEPING WITH OTHERS, ETC. 317 

should have its own nervous organization impaired. 
On being required to sleep in another bed ; to go to 
bed late, but regularly ; to sleep on a pillow a little 
high, so as to antagonize the blood accumulating in 
the brain ; to be waked up about fifteen minutes be- 
fore the starting and screaming took place, so as to 
break up whatever there was of mere habit about it ; 
and not only to be waked up, but to get out of bed, 
walk across the room- two or three times, and throw 
back the bed-covering, so as to allow the confined 
air to escape, then go to bed again, and avoid sleep- 
ing any in the daytime. By these means, and these 
alone, the starting, etc., began to abate, and to dimin- 
ish in frequency within a fortnight, and in two 
months with the results already stated. 

A foreign lady with five children, between two 
and ten, complained, in June, 1846, that for some 
years she rose in the morning very languid, spirit- 
less, without interest, despondent, want of fixedness 
of attention, poor memory, emptiness, such as a ves- 
sel endowed with sensation might be supposed to 
feel when emptied of its contents. The uncertainty 
of what these things meant, and the unwillingness to 
communicate with a physician, was having such an 
effect upon her, that she was afraid of losing her 
mind. The feelings above referred to were more 
intense in the morning, but gradually subsided, until 
at the close of the day the inconvenience was unim- 
portant. . On examination, it was found that the pulse 
was about seventy, a little hard, but not otherwise 
remarkable. She was regular in all the bodily hab- 
its ; feet not cold — rather inconveniently warm ; not 
specially liable to take cold ; appetite good— rather 
to<5 good ; suffered some from headache. These things 
were immediately connected with the simple fact of 
sleeping in the same bed with her husband, (than 
whom few men had better health ;) they apparently 



818 SLEEP. 

had no connection with, marital indulgences. If she 
slept with, her daughter, or sister, or mother, or any 
lady friend, or if she went from home, or remained 
at home, sleeping alone in another apartment, these 
symptoms gradually disappeared ; and if continued 
for several weeks,. her health became good. She had 
now been from home two months, and felt " pretty 
well," excepting the mental disturbance as to causes 
and ultimate results. Directions were given as to the 
best means of maintaining the general health, and to 
sleep alone ; for it seemed clear that there were ema- 
nations from the husband, or abstractions from her, 
which were prejudicial to her. She had slept in silk 
garments, without perceptible advantage. It was 
very clear that the mind had something to do in the 
premises, for she remarked in answer to an inquiry, 
that she had found herself dwelling too much on the 
thought of these things, and that after striving against 
brooding over them, she had been better. 

BODILY EMANATIONS. 

That there are material emanations, distinguishable 
by the sense of smell, constantly passing from every 
thing that breathes, is not denied. That every man 
has a different u scent," is proven by the fact that a 
dog will follow his master through a crowded street 
or road, although not in sight, keeping his nose to 
the ground until he can be seen, when he bounds 
away with his head upwards, because the eye then 
assists hiin. An emanation comes from the negro 
which it requires no nice olfactory to discover. There 
are some white persons who will scent a room in live 
minutes after their entrance, to the extent of really 
sickening delicate organizations. There are nlbst 
probably emanations of a still more ethereal charac- 
ter, more spiritual than solid or physical. One 
unknown person entering a room where there is a 



UNHEALTHY HOUSES. 319 

promiscuous company, will, without speaking a word, 
chill the whole party ; another will fill it with dis- 
gust ; while a third will send out a genial influence 
on every heart. It does not require a very large 
stretch of the" imagination to infer that a combination 
of the ethereal or spiritual emanations with the more 
solid or material, may not very reasonably be thought 
to have a malign influence on a highly wrought or 
very susceptible organization, especially when brought 
into so close a contact as that of bed-fellows. It is 
known the world over, that low typhoid fevers of 
the most malignant and fatal type are caused by hu- 
man emanations, by crowding persons in confined 
apartments. These things being true, there is wis- 
dom in the universal custom of Germany to have 
all beds single. Such a thing as a double bed would 
be considered a disagreeable curiosity in that wide- 
spreading nation. What custom prevails in this re- 
spect when the " fatherland" is left, is not known. 

UNHEALTHY HOUSES. 

A man requires ten cubic feet of air every minute, 
in order to supply an amount of oxygen sufficient . 
for the wants of the system. The air enters the 
limes full of oxveen, it leaves them without an 
atom, hence that which leaves the lungs is so wholly 
unfit for breathing purposes, that if re-breathed, un- 
mixed with any other air whatever, it would cause 
instant suffocation. This unnutritious air is so very 
light that when out of doors it rises instantly toward 
the clouds, as may be seen any frosty morning ; but 
when a person is in a close room, this unwholesome 
air mixes with that which surrounds it, and in a few 
moments the whole air of any room becomes con- 
taminated, and this contamination becomes more ag- 
gravated, more virulent at every breath, and this is 
the reason of the greater rapidity with which persons 



320 SLEEP. 

and animals recover from terrible wounds when they 
have to lie out in the open air, with nothing but 
water to drink and roots or berries to eat for days 
together, when in fact they would certainly have 
died if they had had all the comforts of home, fire- 
side, and friends. It is estimated that in the course 
of fifty years, a man, in round numbers, breathes 
five hundred millions of times, taking into his lungs 
one hundred and seventy tons weight of air, and dis- 
charging therefrom twenty tons of deadly carbonic 
acid gas. The great aim of those who have an ambi 
tion to live long and healthfully should be to re- 
breathe as little of this pernicious gas as possible^ 
and to have as many as practicable, of the five hun- 
dred millions of breaths to be drawn, to be taken 
from the exhaustless store-house of "all out-doors." 
If the circumstances of one's life should make it 
necessary to spend a large portion of existence in- 
doors, then it should be a constant aim and study to 
have a good ventilation, to facilitate the egress of the 
bad air, and that its place should be supplied by that 
which is pure, invigorating, and life-giving. 

Cases are given to show that a malign influence 
has been given to rooms, houses, and circumscribed 
out-door localities ; influences so potent, so invisible, 
go persistent, and so mysterious, as to inspire an in- 
definable dread and awe of the place. Napoleon 
the First once ordered the destruction of a sentry-box 
in which several soldiers had successively committed 
suicide. A case was reported officially lately, in 
Paris, to the effect that a gentleman, without any 
known reason, destroyed himself; that the person 
who occupied the apartment before him, and also the 
latter's predecessor, had committed suicide. 
A correspondent writes, April 11th, 1862 : 
" Our house is situated on the bank of a large 
river, on rather low ground, with salt-marshes on 



UNHEALTHY HOUSES. 321 

one side. So much for the outside. The inside is 
the great bugbear. A large drain runs through the 
middle of the house, from front to rear, and through 
the lawn to the river. 

"On either side of the front of the house is a cis- 
tern and pump of spring-water, waste-water from 
both running through this drain, which is directly 
under the flooring of the kitchen-entry, there being 
no sub-cellars. 

" At the river-end of this lower entry are the two 
water-closets, contents passing to the river through 
said drain. 

"Now the stench (for it is nothing else) through 
the house from this sewer is overpowering at times, 
and always disagreeable. When the wind blows 
from the river, words can give no idea of the 
effluvia. 

" Before I investigated the subject I was afflicted 
for years with a constant diarrhea, for which I con- 
sulted several physicians, and adopted several kinds 
of treatment. 

" My sister, who slept with me, had three long 
illnesses of bilious fever. She slept in the corner 
of our room, just over the drain. The smell in 
that spot is intense. The bedstead was then re- 
moved as far as possible from the noxious corner, 
plenty of sunshine let in the room, and we have 
found much benefit from so doing. 

" A relative, who was never sick in his life before 
he moved into this house, has had fever and ague 
several times ; and I am convinced that if it were 
not that my mother and her four daughters almost 
live in the open air — riding, driving, walking, and 
gardening — - they would be confirmed invalids from 
the air generated through this horrid drain." 

The gas which lights our dwellings, even when 
pure, causes great contamination, unless the products 



322 SLEEP. 

of combustion are speedily conveyed away. But 
illuminating gas is never pure, it always contains bi- 
sulphide of carbon, its burning yields sulphurous 
acid, wh:ch speedily becomes oil of vitriol ; another 
product is sulphurated hydrogen. 

If a man weighs himself at bedtime, and again on 
first rising, he will find an actual loss in weight of 
half a pound, which amount has gone off from his 
body and has been distributed through the bed-cloth- 
ing and the air of the room. If a single ounce of old 
woolen rags is burned in a chamber, the atmosphere 
becomes impregnated with the smoke and is scarcely 
endurable, yet sixteen times that much of foreign 
material, of dead and refuse parts of the body, are 
mixed with the air of a chamber, and although not 
producing so ill an odor, make it sixteen times more 
injurious, because the air is just sixteen times more 
impure, has sixteen times less of the appropriate 
nourishment of the system, showing again the great 
importance of sleeping in well-ventilated chambers. 
If two persons sleep in the same room, these perni- 
cious deteriorations of the atmosphere are doubled. 

PAPERED CHAMBERS. 

This subject has been already referred to, but its 
importance may be more clearly seen and felt by 
considering the effects which are observed in the un- 
fortunate poor whose lot in life is to work in color- 
ing green leaves and buds in artificial flowers, with 
the same substance used in green wall-paper, the 
arsenite of copper, both copper and arsenic being- 
deadly poisons. These workers are mostly women 
and girls, and from breathing all day the dust of this 
arsenite of copper, diffused throughout the atmos- 
phere of the room, soon fall into a most deplorable 
condition. The derangement of the general health 



PAPERED CHAMBERS. 823 

is all-pervading; debility, nervousness, sickness at 
stomach, want of appetite, thirst, headache, and loose- 
ness of bowels, the throat and gums become sore, 
the eyes red and weak, running of the nose, which 
soon becomes sore, and ugly ulcers form on the 
hands, face, neck, and other porticms of the body; 
in fact, the French government, paternal in its na- 
ture, becoming acquainted with the facts, forbade the 
use of such materials, with the result of more beauti- 
ful colors from not unheal thful substances. An in- 
quest was lately held on the dead body of a good- 
looking girl of eighteen, who had worked in these 
flowers ; the lungs, the liver, all the tissues of the 
body were impregnated with arsenic. She died in 
great agony ; the wearing of muslin masks over the 
nose and mouth was not sufficient to protect the 
lungs from the insinuating poison. 

So vigilant is the French government in guarding 
the health and lives of the industrious poor, that a 
manufacturer who surreptitiously employed the poi- 
sonous and forbidden materials was, in February, 
1861, fined and imprisoned, although only a slight 
eruption had been caused on the hands of a part of 
his employees. This same poisonous dust and ef- 
fluvia are constantly escaping from the green paper 
on the walls of chambers. If there is a poisonous 
agent in any green color, a drop or two of elixir 
vitriol discolors it. 

In November, 1861, a boy in his fourth year was 
found in convulsions, which left him apparently half- 
dead. Jiv ;t before, the child had complained of being 
chilly, that he felt sick, would not take any break- 
fast ; during the night he became exceedingly restless. 
His little sister was also seized with convulsions, 
followed by violent screaming and copious discharge 
of the bowels. The boy soon fell into a collapsed 
state, and died thirty-eight hours after the com- 



324 SLEEP. 

mencement of tlie attack. Arsenic was found in the 
stomach, liver, and intestines. On inquiry, it was 
ascertained that the children had been playing seve- 
ral days in a small room covered with green flock- 
paper; the flock brushed off readily. The quantity 
of the poisonous pigment was equal to one third of 
the weight of the paper. The coroner and his son 
experienced headache from sitting in a room hung 
with such paper. The verdict of the jury was, that 
the child had been poisoned by the inhalation of. 
arsenical fumes from green paper, and that the manu- 
facturer was guilty of very careless and culpable 
conduct. 

There is ground for the statement that the death 
of Prince Albert was the result of an illness caused 
by occupying apartments, the atmosphere of which 
was contaminated by foul exhalations. Three years 
before, fevers of a typhoid type were prevalent at 
Windsor, and even in the royal apartments at the 
Castle. A thorough investigation was made by com- 
petent persons as to the drainage of the locality. 
This drainage was found most defective at those parts 
of the Castle where the fever appeared. This defect- 
ive drainage was at the two extremities of the pile 
of buildings, the cloisters and the stables, for they 
were connected with the town sewers ; the middle 
portion of the building had a drainage of its own, 
in good condition. The royal family occupied this 
middle portion and escaped the fever ; and it is quite 
probable that the Prince, who was an accomplished 
horseman and a great lover of horses, would natural- 
ly be drawn to the stables, and thus drew "into his 
nostrils the breath " of death ! the more easily as his 
constitution was not of that vigorous nature calcu- 
lated to repel diseased influences. A single hour's 
breathing of an atmosphere loaded with miasmatic 
exhalations may produce deadly effects, as will ap- 



TEMPERATURE OF CHAMBERS. 325 

pear from the following incident in another royal 
family, but a short time before the death of the hus- 
band of Victoria the First. It is stated in a letter 
from Lisbon, in reference to the death of the young 
King of Portugal : 

"It seems the terrible malady to which the unfor- 
tunate monarch, and two of his brothers, fell victims, 
was caught during a visit to Alemtojo, where the air 
is impregnated with some miasma exceedingly dan- 
gerous to strangers. On the evening of his arrival 
there, the landlord of the house where the royal 
party had put up, came in to inquire at what hour 
his majesty w r anted breakfast next morning, adding 
that it could not well be before eight, as it was very 
unsafe for persons not used to the air. of that country 
to go out early, at least before sunrise ; even the in- 
habitants never venturino; abroad until the sun had 
dispelled the putrid vapors that arise during the 
night from the soil. Unmindful of this warning, the 
King was at his window at six next morning, asking 
for breakfast." 

TEMPERATURE OF CHAMBERS. 

Human life would be prolonged, and an incalcula- 
ble amount of disease prevented, if a little fire were 
kept burning on the hearth during the night, winter 
and summer, if the doors and windows are kept 
closed. One great advantage would be, that a con- 
stant draft would be kept through the room, fire- 
place, and chimney, making a great degree of at- 
mospherical vitiation impossible. There is a bale- 
ful error in the popular mind as to the nature and 
effects of pure air, warm air, and cold air. Warm 
air may be as pure as that of the poles ; and although 
eold air is almost a synonym of pure air, and although 
it is healthful to breathe a cold air asleep or awake, yet 



326 SLEEP. 

the breathing of cold air is healthful only to a certain 
extent. It is not true that because it is healthful to 
sleep in a cool room, it is more healthful to sleep in a 
very cold room, not only because, as has been pre- 
viously stated, carbonic acid becomes heavy under a 
great cold, and falls from the ceiling to the floor and 
bed of the sleeper, but because also a great degree of 
cold in a room where one is sleeping is very certain 
to cause dangerous and even fatal forms of conges- 
tion in the brain and lungs. The same ailments re- 
sult from keeping sitting or sleeping apartments over- 
heated. In midwinter, the heat of a sitting-room 
should not exceed sixty degrees of Fahrenheit, five 
feet above the floor. In the chambers of the sick in 
French hospitals, the directors are careful that there 
shall not be a greater heat than sixty degrees or 
about fifteen centigrade. The temperature of a 
sleeping apartment for invalids and for children in 
health should range about fifty degrees in cold 
weather, and not run lower than thirty -five ; there is 
no advantage in sleeping in a colder atmosphere. 
Five hundred cubic inches of pure air should be de- 
livered to invalids and sleepers every hour, as is the 
custom in the best-regulated French hospitals. 

NERVOUSNESS, DEBILITIES, ETC. 

The nervous fluid is manufactured from the blood ; 
the nerves themselves are nourished and repaired by 
the blood. The whole nervous system may become 
diseased in three ways : first, by sudden shocks ; sec- 
ond, by excessive action ; third, by an unnatural con- 
dition of the blood for a long time. That mental 
shocks, as from fear, or bad news, may prostrate the 
nervous sj^stem, destroy the mind, and life itself, 
needs no argument. That hard work, insufficient 
sleep, too great a press of business, or too much time 



NERVOUSNESS, DEBILITIES, ETC. 327 

spent in study, with errors in eating and neglect of 
exercise, may impair the nervous system, by calling 
the nervous fluid into action or use, before it is fully 
"ripe" or matured, is an often observed fact. The 
remedy, and the only remedy for these is, an avoid- 
ance of their causes ; and it is as useless to look for 
relief in medicines, while the causes are in operation, 
as to prevent the finger from burning as long as it is 
in the fire. The cure in the latter case must begin 
with taking it out of the fire. If there is excessive 
use of any part of the nervous system, whether of the 
thinking portions or of the propensities, the remedy is 
rest ; non-indulgence in the first place, and then ex- 
ercising the thoughts and propensities in another 
direction, to the extent, if possible, of an almost en- 
tire forgetfulness of previous studies and appetites. 
If, for example, a man has studied himself into a dis- 
eased condition ; if he has had such weighty respon- 
sibilities resting on him, that the draft upon his brain 
is such that he can not get sufficient sleep, and he 
cither becomes deranged or is on his way to the 
grave by nervous prostration, there is no more safe 
and certain means of perfect relief, than that of send- 
ing out the nervous influence, or "stores," or accumu- 
lations, in a different direction — that, for example, of 
absorbing and pleasurably interesting out-door activi- 
ties. For the nervous fluids are constantly being gen- 
erated, as steam in a locomotive, when the fire is kept 
burning ; and if that steam is not expending itself on 
the driving mechanism, it must be let out upon the 
air. Destruction is inevitable, unless it finds vent 
somewhere. Hence the process of cure for all those 
nervous maladies which arise from over-use, is not 
merely a cessation of such uses, which is rest, but an 
employment of the influences in a different direction ; 
because, without such employment, there is no per- 
fect rest, as from mere force of habit these influences 



328 SLEEP. 

will go out through, the accustomed channels. To 
prevent a country from being devastated by a rising 
river, not only must a dam be built, but an outlet 
must be opened in another direction. 

A Eussian nobleman, childless, was banished to 
Siberia. His wife was permitted to share his toils 
and privations. They were compelled to live on the 
plainest fare, to live in a miserable hut, and work 
hard every day. At the end of fifteen years, they 
had a house full of healthy children. In this case, 
the power of reproduction was lost through those 
excessive indulgences which are inseparable from a 
life of idleness and voluptuous ease. Hard-working 
peoples are the most prolific, as witness the Israelites 
in the laborious service of Pharaoh. In a recent 
census taken in one of the towns of Massachusetts, it 
appeared that although the foreign population was 
less than the native, a smaller number of Irish fami- 
lies gave more births in one year than a larger num- 
ber of American. An Irishman does more hard 
work than an American. Idleness predisposes to an 
excessive indulgence of the propensities, and this 
very indulgence increases the desires; thus being 
over-used, they become powerless, inefficient; that 
upon which they thus feed inordinately, destroys 
them. A state of labor is the natural habitual state 
of man ; animal indulgences, incidental, occasional ; 
and in proportion as this law is reversed, in such 
proportion does it tend to the extinction of the race. 

The object of this extended statement, is to im- 
press on the mind that the natural, safe, and efficient 
means of correcting all nervous derangements, is to 
give more rest to the parts deranged or disturbed, and 
so to change the modes of life as to send out the 
nervous power constantly being generated in the sys- 
tem through other channels, thus giving those which 
are overworked time for recuperation. It would be 



NERVOUSNESS, DEBILITIES, ETC. 329 

tlie same if a man were dying with excessive physical 
exertion. Let the body rest, and give him something 
to engage his thoughts pleasantly ; send the nervous 
system out of the body, through the brain. 
" Next to over-indulgences as a cause of nervous 
disturbances, is an imperfect assimilation of food, 
that is, indigestion, known as dyspepsia, which is the 
failure of the stomach and other parts of the digestive 
apparatus to convert the food into perfect, that is, 
-health-giving blood ; for if the blood is imperfect in 
quality, the nervous influence which is made out of 
that blood must also be imperfect, not of a suitable 
character, hence does not manifest itself naturally, 
fails to effect the objects intended by nature. When 
a man is dyspeptic, that portion of the nervous fluid 
•which is sent to the brain is not of a proper quality ; 
and whatever part of the brain is in the habit of 
greater exercise, is more particularly disturbed, be- 
cause more of the imperfect blood, or more of the 
imperfect nervous fluid is sent there. Suppose the 
moral organs, at the top of the head, are most con- 
stantly exercised, as in the case of a clergyman, his 
teachings will diverge from the right line, will be 
unfaithfully lax, or morbidly rigid, painfully exact, 
uiisjmipathizing, vituperative, dealing in epithets and 
invectives, with not a tithe of the forbearances which 
characterized the Master. If he be more of a theo- 
rizer, more purely intellectual or imaginative, his 
discourses will tend to what is airy, impractical, and 
absurd. If he be " domestic," a great lover of his 
wife and children, devoted to their welfare, the effect 
of bad blood on this part of the brain is to revolu- 
tionize this sentiment, and he becomes insufferably 
cross, complaining of the very things done for his 
comfort and welfare, overrunning with a multitude 
of utterly groundless suspicions, imagining slights 
and inattentions where they were never intended, 



330 SLEEP. 

and perverting every thing said and done. If such, 
a person, or exceedingly affectionate parent, or other 
relative, becomes actually deranged, the life of the 
child is sought, or of the kindred most loved. It 
is thus that mothers are not unfrequently known 
to murder their own children, the infants of their 
bosom. 

If a man loves to eat over-much, the imperfect, the 
bad blood excites the stomach to inordinate appe- 
tites. 'The man is never satisfied ; he is always eat- 
ing, always hungry, can not wait for his meals with 
any kind of comfort or patience — hence eats when- 
ever he is hungry, giving the stomach no time for 
rest ; thus it is over- worked and the main difficulty is 
increased. 

It is precisely so with the great propensity of our 
nature. The nervous energies are sent out through 
proper or improper indulgences ; the imperfect blood 
of dyspepsia, or bad blood from whatever cause, goes 
to the parts in excess, and has one of two effects : it 
affords no nourishment, or excessive ; desire dies, or 
is morbidly great. The first step is rest ; the second, 
to supply a pure blood, which is best done in im- 
proving the general health by perfect cleanliness, 
regular daily bodily habits, regular eating thrice a 
day, feet always dry and warm, sleeping in a cool, 
well- ventilated apartment, sleeping only seven hours, 
being in bed only seven hours of the twenty-four, 
and that all at the same time — seven consecutive 
hours spent in sleep, so as to insure its soundness 
In addition to these, and without which the others 
can not be expected to be efficient, the nervous influ- 
ences must be sent out of the body through another 
set of channels ; must be expended in physical exer- 
cises, steady, hard, remunerative work, calling into 
requisition, the while, all that force of will which can 



NERVOUSNESS, DEBILITIES, ETC. 331 

possibly be brought to bear in compelling the mind 
into a different channel. 

The proof of the truthfulness of the principle pre- 
sented may be easily demonstrated in any half-hour. 
Move the arm up and down continuously, until mo- 
tion becomes painful or impossible ; then running 
can be done as vigorously as if the arm had not been 
moved so. After running for some time, and resting 
the arm, it recovers its entire strength. It is precisely 
so with every other muscle or set of muscles in the 
sj^stem, its glands or manufactories. A man may 
think until the brain seems scarcely to work at all, 
yet he can go out and work as hard as before he be- 
gan to think, and after a while can go to his study 
and think to advantage again. 

To administer medicines to stimulate any power 
into wonted activity, is only the stimulus of the 
lash to an exhausted donkey ; it either kills outright, 
or induces an unnatural effort, which can only be 
exerted temporarily, with the certain effect of falling 
into greater exhaustions. Precisely so is it with the 
tonics and other remedies more powerful and more 
destructive, when employed to " invigorate." As 
proof, the universal testimony is, " It seemed to do 
good for a while." The recognition of this simple 
truth would prevent the blasting of many a fond 
hope, would save many a dollar to those who can 
ill afford its expenditure, would prevent the rob- 
bery of many a till, would save his integrity to many 
a (heretofore) noble-minded youth. Ignorance of 
that principle has allowed multitudes to precipitate 
themselves into wrong-doing, and into vices which, 
have ultimated in ruin to body, soul, and estate. 



332 SLEEP. 



FALSITIES. 

Designing persons have perverted facts, with a view 
to impose on the young and inexperienced, thus : 
The instantaneousness of the acme of propensity is 
given as proof of an unfortunate debility. But keen- 
ness of appetite after long fasting, is no proof that 
there is no ability to enjoy food, no proof of debility 
of the digestive apparatus. The colt kept long in 
the stable, bounds away like a deer as soon as the 
door is opened. All the appetites of our nature are 
keen after long disuse, or if infrequently gratified. 
The very keenness of enjoyment of a favorite dish, 
is the strongest proof possible of the power to enjoy, 
and of the healthfullness of the parts involved. The 
absence of the capability of enjoyment is the proof of 
diseased conditions. As to every taste, appetite, and 
propensity of our nature, the three great rules are, 
Temperance, Rest, Diversion. In this connection a 
" Society" has been in operation for a number of 
years. One of its late announcements is of "new 
remedies " of vaunted powers — the strongest acknow- 
ledgment of the inefficiency of the old. This alone 
is most suggestive to the reflecting. That self-called 
" Society " of one, if possessed of any intelligence, 
would naturally employ all the means suggested by 
the medical literature and experience of the world, 
and the bare notice that it had "new remedies' 7 
was simply a confession that up to a.d. 1862, there 
was no cure of the nervous affections to be found in 
any medicine known to that date. It is then clearly 
the dictate of common-sense, that if those really af- 
flicted can find no relief in the judicious and persist- 
ent attention to the suggestions above of rest, tem- 
perance, and diversion, the next resort should be to 
a known physician of intelligence, experience, and 
honorable standing, simply because he has direct 



LOSSES, ETG. 333 

an<l immediate, access to all tlie medical discoveries 
of the civilized world; hence no stranger, or charla- 
tan, or pretender can possibly be ahead of them, can 
possibly know any thing which they do not know. 

" LOSSES," ETC. 

As to those "losses" which result from early 
habits learned from evil associations, one impression 
is here sought to be made on every reader, that no 
medicine known can by any possibility repress or 
" stop " them permanently, except such as endanger 
the power of the system and life itself. Repressing 
a thing of this kind is no more a " cure " than it is a 
cure to drive in measles,' nettle-rash, tetter and the 
like. The most uninformed know that the striking- 
in of measles and such ailments can never be done 
with impunity, that life is always endangered there- 
by. So with the monthlies, and so with the subject 
in question. Nature will find a vent or make one 
in some way, as to the unmarried, once or twice a 
month or even thrice ; if these bounds are not ex- 
ceeded, it is not unhealthful. In proportion as they 
are exceeded, there is debility, nervousness, etc., as 
named in previous pages. To give some idea of the 
power it requires to repress, the remedies ordinarily 
employed are not only poisons, but those of the most 
virulent character, a grain or two of which cause 
immediate and certain death, such as strychnine, 
gelsemin, ignatia mara, mix vomica, etc., but in order 
not to excite apprehension, less formidable names are 
appended to the prescriptions. If this is not suffi- 
cient to deter from medicinal remedies, or any reme- 
dies from any one except the family physician, it 
may be enough to append a letter received April 
5th, 1862, one of a class innumerable received by 
city practitioners : " These habits were contracted 



334 SLEEP. 

at an early age ; they left distressing consequences. 
I took various medicines, and after exhausting all 
my means I am a confirmed invalid, and my physi- 
cian tells me there is no help for me, that I can not 
get well." 

These habits acquire such a sway over the young 
sometimes, that at the early age of twelve the sub- 
jects of them are as powerless of resistance as is the 
most inveterate drinker or opium-eater at the age of 
fifty years. Within a few months standard medical 
journals report two cases in California of eleven and 
twelve years, where only a terrible surgical operation 
could (but did) break up the habit, and save from 
clearly approaching idiocy. 

The American Journal of Medical Science reports a 
case of a child not twelve years old, " of a gentle and 
engaging disposition, and endowed with a considera- 
ble degree of intelligence, so powerfully influenced 
by the fatal passion which dominated, while it un- 
dermined its existence ; this child at length became 
an object of horror to the parents and the friends, 
and soon after died with all the symptoms of brain 
disease," and which, on further examination, was 
found to have extended to the whole spinal column, 
involving the spinal marrow ; the cerebro-spinal 
fluid having become u yellow matter " instead of a 
clear transparent fluid, as it is in health. It is 
not, therefore, by any means strange that in a case 
known to the author, a manly }^outh, born to a for- 
tune, in one of the loveliest and happiest families of 
brothers and sisters in the land, has been for several 
years the inmate of a lunatic asylum, hopelessly 
idiotic, never speaking a word. As such results are 
not infrequent, and any family is liable to the mis- 
fortune in some of its members, it is considered pro- 
per, wise, and humane to press the subject on the 
attention of the judicious and the reflecting. It is 



LOSSES, ETC. 385 

particularly desirable to disabuse the mind of a pre- 
valent impression, that the physical " losses " neces- 
sarily involve moral guilt, or are the result solely of 
improper practices, for they will always occur more 
or less to the most virtuous and to the married, if 
from home a short time. Nature will force an outlet 
to accumulations when the channels of her own ap- 
pointment are in any way closed. But she must 
have the cooperation of temperance, cleanliness, in- 
dustry, and force of will, moral and intellectual ; a 
force of will worthy of a man, in order to keep her 
in healthful bounds ; these are safe and efficient : 
medicinal means are always uncertain, inefficient, 
unsafe, or dangerous. 

The practical view to be taken of nervous affec- 
tions in general, is, that they are an effect ; and whe- 
ther it be called neuralgia, nervous debility, nervous 
prostration, or any other name, and in whatever 
part of the body it is located, the immediate cause 
is in the condition of the blood, for it is upon the 
blood the nerves feed, it is by the blood they are 
nourished, and from it they derive all their power. 
If the blood is not supplied in sufficient quantity, in- 
anition is the result, a general prostration ; if the 
biood is too rich, there is abnormal action ; if the 
blood is impure or imperfect, there is nervous irrita- 
bility ; the mind is fretful, peevish, unstable, the 
body is weak, restless, and invigorous ; if the blood 
is overabundant, there are aches and pains, neural- 
gias, which are literally " nerve-aches," in any and 
every part of the system. There is beside these, a 
nervous debility, which arises from the part being 
exercised beyond the strength given by the natural 
amount of healthful blood sent to it, and that part 
becomes, exhausted temporarily ; if rested, it returns 
to its natural condition ; if called into excessive 
action soon again, rest will enable it to regain its 



336 SLEEP. 

usual strength; but that rest must be longer, each 
succeeding exhaustion requiring more time for recu- 
peration, until, eventually, the power of recuperation 
is lost. This is destructive excess, not only to the 
part itself, but to the whole system, because the 
malady spreads as naturally and as certainly as the 
fire in a burning building, and ceases not until the 
ruin is complete. If the brain is exercised too intense- 
ly, whether in perplexing study, in incessant anxie- 
ties, or in the vortex of business, it soon begins at 
length to lose its elasticity, its power of concentra- 
tion, its continuity of thought, and the mind goes out 
in darkness, the body in death, or both body and 
mind together wilt and w T ither away. But even this 
condition of things is found in an unnatural state of 
the blood, brought about by the brain consuming 
more than its share of the nervous supplies ; hence the 
stomach and other portions of the digestive apparatus 
have less than their share, perform their duties im- 
perfectly, and make an imperfect blood, bringing us 
again to the point arrived at before, to w r it, that in 
the cure of all nervous difficulties, rest to the parts is 
the first essential; the absolutely indispensable step; 
the next is to supply the parts with a better quality 
of blood, a blood which is perfect, pure, and abun- 
dant. Nothing can purify the blood without pure 
air ; nothing can make it perfect and life-giving but 
muscular exercise* sufficient, yet not excessive, not 
exhausting, the whole expressed in three words, 
" moderate out-door ACTIVITIES," always safe, al- 
ways permanently efficient, and will always cure, if 
cure is possible, when conjoined with all the sleep 
the system will take at night in large, well- ventilated 
chambers, having a constant supply of pure out-door 
air steadily introduced. 



SLEEP. 337 

As to the debilitating which, take place in the 
latter hours of a night's sleep, even the married 
sometimes complain, not only of the debility, but of 
various other things, as pain in the back, listlessness, 
want of concentration of mind, bad memory, des- 
pondency, and easily tired ; but none of these are 
necessarily the symptoms of what they have been 
led to believe by reading mischievous and demoral- 
izing books. In nine cases out of ten, these symp- 
toms have no real existence ; they are the creations 
of a morbid sensibility. The best cure for this state 
of things is to exercise manly courage and resolution 
enough to drive them away from the mind, by en- 
gaging in some active, invigorating, useful, and pro- 
fitable business ; one which will allow no time for 
useless and idle moping about. 

The early morning debilitations are certainly a 
reality, but if not connected with present vicious 
habits, and they do not occur half a dozen times a 
month, they can not have any specially disturbing 
ill effect of long continuance. But these debilita- 
tions do occur to the virtuously married, and all 
ought to know it, without any moral guilt, but from 
one of two directly opposite causes — too frequent or 
two infrequent marital indulgences ; the mean, pro- 
per to each individual, must, like sleep, be ascer- 
tained by an intelligent observation. AH rules in 
this regard would be as ridiculously absurd as those 
which prescribe how much each man should eat, or 
work, or sleep ; each constitution, each system should 
have the amount proper to it, and any excess or de- 
ficiency will always and inevitably result in decided 
and permanent harm to the whole body, if persisted 
in. The only possible method of determining wisely, 
safely, and certainly what each requires, is the exer- 
cise of an intelligent observation on effects from a 
greater or lesser number. Generally, if healthy, 



338 SLEEP. 

grown persons sleep less than seven Lours in twenty- 
four, they are apt to be "dull" daring the day ; if 
they sleep nine or ten hours out of the twenty-four, 
they are also " dull," because, in attempting to get 
so much sleep, to force on nature more than she 
requires, the whole amount of sleep is imperfect ; 
the faculties are imperfectly nourished and recreated, 
hence are M dull " also. Precisely so in the case in 
hand ; the " debilitations" follow an excess or a de- 
ficit. Begin with a weekly restraint of fifty per 
cent, and if these debilitations diminish in frequency 
within a month, then excess has been the cause ; and 
vice versa. Let the married so regulate the matter, 
that there shall be no debilitations from one year's 
end to another. The whole subject is a delicate one, 
and the reader's sympathy is claimed in the contem- 
plation of the difficulty of the endeavor to convey 
most important practical information, needed in every 
family, and at the same time to avoid pandering to 
depravity. The city practitioner is often consulted 
by persons laboring under distressing apprehensions 
of indefinite calamities, from that prolific source of 
ills, pernicious reading, as found in books which 
they would not care to have it known they pos- 
sessed. A lightish-colored, glairy substance, resem- 
bling somewhat the white of an egg in appearance, 
consistency, and color, is observed to follow a pas- 
sage from the bowels or urination, sometimes leaving 
a stain. This is uniformly represented in the pub- 
lications referred to as a most momentous affair, a 
symptom which threatens enormous ills ; and being 
a symptom of no special importance, easily rectified, 
if necessary in a few days, by trifling remedies, it 
serves at once as a foundation for exorbitant 
charges, and the gaining of considerable credit for 
the skill and ability of the charlatan engaged in the 
nefarious deceptions. There are not three cases in a 



SLEEP. 339 

thousand where these things are any more than a 
running at the nose on the taking of a cold, a simple 
inflammation of the mucous membrane of the parts, 
not worth while doing any thing for, unless for the 
mere purpose of allaying the groundless apprehen- 
sions of the nervous, as they might exist for a life- 
time without any appreciable ill result ; and, nine 
times out of ten, will cure themselves at a proper 
period, if simply let alone. Standard medical writ- 
ers, known the world over, write in this view of the 
subject, and their testimony is so positive, their rea- 
sonings so conclusive, their observations so nume- 
rously corroborated, that it is not necessary to make 
any quotations or to cite any authority. In conclu- 
sion, in reference to this whole class of subjects, the 
never-failing remedies are temperance, a high moral 
sense, a manly force of will, and a life of steady, 
active, useful, and absorbing industry. 

As men begin to be about fifty years old, espe- 
cially if of sedentary habits, the feeling on rising in 
the morning is as if they had not gotten enough 
sleep, not as much as they used to have, and as if 
they would like to have more, but they can not get 
it. They look upon a healthy child sleeping soundly 
with a feeling of envy. But it is curious to observe 
that there is a bliss to all in the act of going to sleep, 
a bliss we become cognizant of only when we hap- 
pen to be aroused just as we are falling into sound 
sleep ; and there are strong physiological reasons to 
suppose that this state is a counterpart of that great 
event which is to come upon all, the act of dying. 
In fact, those who have in rare cases been brought 
back to life when on its extremest verge, and in 
several cases as to those who have been recovered 
from drowning and other modes of strangulation, 
or simple smothering, called " asphyxia" by physi- 
cians, the expressions have been, on coming to con- 



340 SLEEP. 

sciousness : " How delicious I" " Why did you not 
let me go?" An eminent name, thus brought back, 
represented that the last-remembered sensations of 
which he was conscious were as if he were listening 
to the most ravishing strains of music. Let us all 
then- cherish the thought that our approach to the 
sleep of the grave is the strict counterpart of the 
approach to sleep, of which some nameless writer 
has beautifully said : "It is a delicious moment; the 
feeling that we are safe, that we shall drop gently to 
sleep. The good is to come, not past. The limbs 
have been just tired enough to render the remaining 
in one position delightful, and the labor of the day 
is done. A gentle failure of the perceptions comes 
slowly creeping over us ; the spirit of consciousness 
disengages itself more and more, with slow and 
hushing degrees, like a fond mother detaching her 
hand from that of her sleeping child ; the mind 
seems to have a balmy lid closing over it, like the 
eye, closing, more closed, closed altogether ! and the 
mysterious spirit of sleep has gone to take its airy 
rounds." May such be the physical "bliss of dying" 
to you and to me, reader, with the spiritual added, 
ten thousand times more ineffable. 



THE YOUNG SUICIDE. 341 

THE YOUNG SUICIDE. 

Kecently, a young collegian of twenty, who had 
the love and respect of his teacher and his class- 
mates, for his diligence in his studies, his high classi- 
cal position, and his generous nature, was found in 
his bed-room dead, the arteries of his arm having 
been severed, and his throat cut from ear to ear ; an 
empty vial was found on the floor, labeled " Poison." 
A note on the stand read thus : 

"Forgive me, my dearest parents, for this dread- 
ful deed, but I am unworthy and unfit to live. May 
God forgive me ! Farewell." 

There are scores of such deaths every year, and 
the inquiry arises in every thoughtful mind : " What 
could have been the reason for such a terrible act?" 
This youth was the only child of rich parents ; and 
the uninitiated vainly look around for an adequate 
motive for a deed so dreadful. A physician, espe- 
cially a city physician, and more particularly the 
editor of a journal, treating of health and disease, is 
at no loss to unravel the mystery. The key to the 
sad history is found in the three facts, the victim was 
a man — young, unmarried. Medical editors and phy- 
sicians are constantly receiving letters like the fol- 
lowing: "Can you save me from an ignominious 
grave ? O God ! that some one would give a cure 
for those unfortunates who have been so foolish. 
Will you, in God's name, give a cure in your next 
issue ? and you will have the prayers of thousands." 
A day or two later came the following : " Dear Sir : 
In the midst of despair, I earnestly address you, 
thinking that perhaps my sorrow may by your skill 
be turned into joy. I have by indulgence ruined 
myself. I have applied to many without permanent 
"benefit ; hence the cause of despair. Now I feel the 
consequence of my crime to a very great extent men- 



342 , SLEEP. 

tally, in consequence of which I have been obliged 
to give up all employment and do nothing, and of 
late I am totally unfit for any thing. I have now 
before me a copy of your Jouknal of Health, 
volume nine, for October, 1862. Hence I address 
you, hoping you may be able to suggest some means 
for regaining health and happiness. I feel as if I 
would surely die, if I do not obtain some active and 
immediate remedy." While supervising these lines 
for the press, a letter is received from a young gen- 
tleman of high position, untarnished reputation, and 
of high moral worth, active, energetic, and faithful 
in all the offices of trust in which he has been placed, 
and which he has never failed to fill with honor to 
himself, and credit to his friends. Such an one writes : 
" I am satisfied that hell is my portion in robbing Na- 
ture and robbing God, my Creator. My mind is giv- 
ing way to despair. I am ashamed of myself before 
my fellow-men and before God. And if I am dealt 
with according to my deserts, I am doomed." The 
practical question, and one which very nearly con- 
cerns every parent who has an unmarried son over fif- 
teen years of age, is, What can produce such states of 
mind ? They arise in all cases from a vicious read- 
ing ; from perusing books which are sent gratis and 
post-paid by cart-loads, to all parts of the country 
every year, through the agency of the newspapers, 
with advertisements headed in this wise — taking a 
city daily, at this present writing — and which are 
copied, for large " consideration," by the country 
press, (nor are all of our religious papers guiltless of 
this damning iniquity :) " To the Unmarried," " Mar- 
riage Guide," " Physiology," " The Benevolent As- 
sociation," " Physiological Inquiries," " Young Man's 
Book," ""Warning to Young Men," "Manhood," 
"Physical Debility," with a variety of other head- 
ings. These publications have the same aim, object, 



THE YOUNG SUICIDE. 343 

and end, and the midnight depravity which indites 
them stands out in every page. It is not necessary 
here to enter into minute details, but to make use of 
the general facts. The programme marked out bj 
all of them is essentially the same. First, to pander 
to the vitiated curiosity of boj 7 s and youth, not only 
by the " pictorial illustrations drawn from life," but 
by speciousness of argument and reasoning and state- 
ments, to mislead the mind, inflame the imagination, 
corrupt the heart, and eventually degrade the whole 
character. It is an often remarked fact, that among 
the young gentlemen who attend a first course of 
medical lectures, there are a large number who im- 
agine themselves the victims of each successive dis- 
ease, as it is presented in course by the lecturer. And 
any person not versed in medicine can scarcely read 
any book on any disease, without beginning to im- 
agine that he has more or less of its symptoms. In 
fact, medical biography abounds with notices of the 
deaths of men from the very diseases, the successful 
treatment of which made them famous; leaving us 
to suppose that imagination has something to do in 
causing, or at least in aggravating, some human 
maladies. It is not surprising then, that youths in 
their teens, or just entering manhood, in reading a 
treatise strongly depicting the ultimate effects of cer- 
tain symptoms, alleged to be connected w T ith certain 
conditions of the system, should run riot in their 
fears, and throw themselves helplessly into the hands 
of those who seem to know so much on the subject, 
and by their own accounts have had such remarkable 
success in their line. In every one of these books, 
without exception, certain symptoms are mentioned 
(not peculiar to any one disease, but common to a 
number, or which may exist, and if let alone, would 
in time disappear of themselves) as peculiar to a state 
of the system indicative of " a w T ant of capabilities." 



344 SLEEP. 

Among these the most stereotyped are, dimness of 
vision, loss of memory, incapability of mental con- 
centration, no steadiness of purpose, depression of 
spirits, etc. Then certain physical appearances are 
noted as corroborative of the existence of the malady 
in question. The youth, not having opportunities 
of comparing himself with others ; not knowing that 
a good many of these very appearances are natural, 
or are not incompatible with perfect health, be- 
comes alarmed, and in his fright appeals to the author 
of the book he has been reading, to save him by all 
means from the impending ruin and disgrace. A fee 
is extorted, which is up to the utmost ability of the 
victim to raise. Eemedies are used. They do not 
change the condition of things ; simply because the 
conditions are in many cases not unnatural ; but the 
patient is made to believe that it is because the case 
is more desperate than was imagined, and that more 
powerful and more expensive remedies must be used. 
These are alike unavailing ; meanwhile, weeks and 
months pass away ; the victim has spent all the mo- 
ney he can " rake and scrape," " beg, borrow, or 
steal " literally, and then writes to some known 
physician in the strain of the letters already quoted, 
to make at least one more attempt at rescue ; or if 
he does not this, he settles down in the despair which 
leads to suicide. 

But there is sometimes a more dreadful ending so 
far as mental and bodily sufferings are concerned ; we 
say more dreadful with design ; for it is more so in 
proportion as it is more of a calamity to die on the 
rack than by a cannon-ball. When the sharper has 
obtained all the money possible from its victim, and 
wishes to get rid of him, he says in plain language : 

" There is no help for you but in marriage." But 
often this is an impossible remedy, and even if it 
were practicable, the patient has such a view of his 



THE YOUNG SUICIDE. 345 

condition, that lie would consider it dishonorable and 
even infamous to impose himself upon a confiding 
woman. The sharper is prepared for this, and with 
practiced depravity, advises an illegal connection, not 
only as a test of capabilities, but as a remedy for cer- 
tain symptoms observed to occur in the early morn- 
ing, or at the close of certain natural actions. Human 
nature can seldom withstand the motives presented 
in cases like these. Six months ago a gentleman 
applied for advice under the following circumstances. 
He had been led, by reading a book on " physiology," 
to believe that in connection with certain practices a 
deplorable state of things was induced. He placed 
himself under the care of the writer of the book in 
question, and in two or three years had expended a 
considerable amount of money, without adequate 
results. He was then told that he must form a crim- 
inal liaison, which he did with inconceivable loathing, 
and which he maintained until he found himself the 
victim of a degrading disease, showing itself on the 
face and hands. To escape the inquiries of relatives 
and friends, he left home and came to us, the embodi- 
ment of despair, the mind hopeless, the body ruined, 
the constitution a wreck. This disease the writer has 
never treated in a single case ; and it is always turn- 
ed over to other hands, the usual advice being, when 
there is any hope of restoration, to have recourse to 
the family physician at home, who would be more 
likely than any other to take a deep interest in the 
case, and exercise those sympathies which are so re- 
quisite under the circumstances. 

Cases of this kind are of daily occurrence, and are 
constantly coming under the notice of city physi- 
cians, by hundreds and thousands every year. Some 
practical lessons of an importance which can not 
perhaps be over-estimated, may be drawn from this 
subject: 



346 SLEEP. 

1. Allow no paper or magazine to enter your 
house which offers, by advertisement, to send any 
book on health and disease free of cost. No man 
can afford to print a book for nothing, and then to 
pay postage on it, unless he afterward finds his pay 
in the manner above described. 

2. Let all parents encourage the early marriage of 
their sons ; as ^oon after twenty-one as circumstances 
will permit ; it is a less evil than to be exposed to 
the dangers above referred to, by putting it off to 
the more physiologically appropriate age of twenty- 
five. 

3. Let no youth of intelligence ever consult a 
man at a distance, for the ailments which have been 
alluded to, or the supposed symptoms of impossible 
things. It is a thousand times better to consult the 
family physician at home ; him you can trust with 
safety, as to body and reputation ; a thing which is 
never to be done by men who send books free of 
charge, which treat of any form of disease. 

As to the symptoms and debilitations' of the early 
morning, and which have such a depressing influ- 
ence on mind and body, second only to those of dys- 
pepsia, nothing can be more certain than that there 
is no remedy safe and certain in drugs ; but it must 
be sought in the diligent following out of some active 
industrial pursuit, force of will, and the cultivation 
of a high and manly moral power, which looks with 
angry and impatient contempt on all that is vicious, 
corrupting, and degrading, whether in deed or word 
or thought ; this is the only efficient, the only infal- 
lible remedy, and is worthy of the mature reflection 
of every high-minded and generous-hearted youth. 



CONTROLLING POPULATION. • 347 

CONTROLLING POPULATION. 

Whether it is right for individuals to use means 
in lawful wedlock to avoid having children, is a 
question which each must decide for himself. That 
procreation is connected with the strongest passion of 
our nature, seems to indicate the fact, that the con- 
tinuance of the race was intended to be in a measure 
compulsory; it would then follow that any effort to 
thwart the purposes of Providence, would be essen- 
tially criminal, as the narration in the thirty -eighth 
chapter of Genesis clearly proves. It has been said 
of a Eoman Emperor, that his love of eating was 
such, he had been known to cause vomiting after a 
hearty dinner, in order that he might soon again re- 
peat the pleasure of having another magnificent re- 
past. The reader can but turn with disgust at such 
a degradation, at this or any other perversion or pro- 
traction, of the natural gratifications. Attention is 
called to the question of morals above stated in 
order to give 

A WARNING, 

as to the various means used. It is perfectly certain 
that there is only one safe and infallible preventive, 
and that is abstinence ; but that very abstinence is 
the exhibition of a selfishness as intense as it is de- 
basing, in proportion as one party suffers an incon- 
venience more trying and annoying than the other. 
No person in honorable wedlock has a right to re- 
strain the other from the reasonable exercise of the 
gratifications of our nature, on any ground, whether 
of danger or suffering, or of simple inconvenience. 
Cases are constantly coming before the city physi- 
cian, where the restricted party, endures, out of a 
generous nature and a warm affection ; but the great- 
er the discredit and the deeper the contempt is due 
to the party which imposes on that pure affection 



348 SLEEP. 

and that high generosity. If repudiation is not jus- 
tifiable by the New Testament code in cases like 
these, a thousand times ten thousand proofs can be 
given every year of the world, that these restrictions 
on one party for the mere whim or fancy or con- 
venience of the other, have introduced lifelong dis- 
cords and dislikes in families which were aforetime 
happy, contented, and respectable ; while in other 
cases, persons not under the control of high moral 
obligation, or with perverted views on this subject, 
have been driven to illicit connections ; and having 
once broken down the holiest of domestic barriers 
the way has opened for the easy incoming of a brood 
of evils which it is sorrowful to contemplate ; for when 
conjugal fidelity has been sacrificed, the worst pas- 
sions and practices of our nature make an easy con- 
quest of the victim. 

4 'withdrawal." 

This is the term now used which as a means of 
avoiding the responsibilities of large families, is be- 
coming very common of late years ; and the effects 
of such practices are beginning more and more fre- 
quently to attract the attention of city practitioners, 
especially to a new combination of ' ailments which 
are as distressing as they are dangerous ; and if the 
readers of these pages could be made fully to under- 
stand what these pains and penalties are, it is very 
certain that few of them would have the courage to 
risk them ; these are eventually (sometimes appear- 
ing in a very few weeks after the commencement of 
the practices) no perfect enjoyments; with intense 
pains always following ; a gradual weakening of the 
whole system ;., tormenting pains in the loins ; pains 
or soreness when sitting down, inducing a constant 
change of posture ; and when it is considered that a 
very large portion of the waking existence of many 



CONTROLLING POPULATION. 349 

is spent in a sitting position, he must be a brave 
man who will risk bringing on himself a painfulness 
which knows not an instant's cessation as long as he 
is not in a recumbent position, or on his feet. The 
very clothing near the parts implicated, although 
abundantly roomy, causes an uncomfortable feeling 
of pressure or restraint ; the calls of nature are at- 
tended with a feeling of anxiety, apprehension and 
imperfection ; and all the while there is a mental dis- 
turbance, a painful apprehension of future ills, and 
a depression of spirits ; a want of physical, mental 
and moral courage, which altogether make life a 
pain instead of a pleasure ; a burden instead of bliss. 
The great practical inference is, that all should 
" use " the pleasures and gratifications of our animal 
nature, " as not abusing them ;" using, them in their 
natural way and order, regularly, temperately ; re- 
membering that we are above the brutes which per- 
ish, and are but a little lower than the angels ; the 
very thought of which should be constantly cher- 
ished, so that the contemplation of such a glorious 
truth should elevate and ennoble us ; raising us high- 
er and higher above the world and its baser pleas- 
nreSj and constantly bringing us nearer and nearer 
to that exalted state which the Beneficent Creator 
has destined his faithful ones to occupy. 



SLEEP. 341 

NOTE TO P. 79. 

The Lawrence Model Lodging-Hottse. — This institution, which 
was founded by the late Mr. Abbott Lawrence, is now completed and 
fully tenanted. It is situated not far from the Boston Common, and 
is five stories high. The structure is of brick, with granite and free- 
stone trimmings. There are four tenements on each floor, with a like 
number of rooms, and all the necessary closets attached to each. 
They are divided each from the other by a brick wall, and entered 
from an entry-way built of the same material. Every convenience is 
afforded for the health and comfort of the occupants. The tenants 
are chiefly clerks, mechanics, railroad employees, whose incomes vary 
from $450 to $1000 per annum. Their tenements cost them from 
$2.50 to $3.25 per week, according to the location. The rent is paid 
in advance. The entire cost of the land and building is estimated at 
$30,000, and the income nets about six per cent per annum. 

NOTE TO P. 215. 

Four children, belonging to a laboring man residing at Limehouse, 
have been poisoned by arsenical paper-hangings in the room where they 
slept and played. The children sickened and died in rapid succes- 
sion, and it was supposed by the medical man who attended them 
that the fatal disease was diphtheria. The great mortality, however, 
caused uneasiness in the neighborhood, and an inspection of the house 
was directed. It then appeared that, although the house was clean, 
well-drained and ventilated, the room occupied by the children was 
a deadly place, it being hung with green paper. This the children 
had torn off in some places to make toys with, and in the course of 
their play had been in the habit of sucking the green color off. The 
paper was saturated with arsenic. — London paper for July, 1802. 

A lady, residing in Boston, was fast going into a decline, on ac- 
count of sleeping in a room in which there were highly-colored green 
paper-hangings on the walls. The doctor found out the cause, the room 
was stripped of the hangings, and the lady at once began to improve. 
— August, 1862. 

NOTE TO P. 232. 

Poison-Flowers. — Some time since, attention was called to the 
poisonous coloring-matter of certain flowers worn in ladies' head- 
dresses. The subject has attracted general notice lately, and the 
Hon. Mrs. Cowper has acted on behalf of the Ladies' Sanitary Associ- 
ation. An analysis of some of these flowers has been made By Prof. 
Hoffman. Here is a passage from his report : " In a dozen of the 
leaves sent me, analysis has pointed out on an average the presence 
of ten grains of white arsenic. I learn from some lady friends that 
a ball-wreath usually contains about fifty of these leaves. Thus a 
lady wears in her hair more than forty grains of white arsenic — a 
quantity which, if taken in appropriate doses, would be sufficient to 



342 SLEEP. 

poison twenty persons. This is no exaggeration, for the leaves sent 
to me were — some of them, at least — only partly colored, others only 
variegated. In consequence of some inquiries, I have been led lately 
to pay more than usual attention to the head-dresses of ladies, and I 
observe that the green leaves are often much larger and more deeply 
colored than those which I have received." Is a word of comment 
or caution necessary after this ? Surely not. Here is the remedy 
for such an abuse. Dr. Hoffman says : " Ladies can not, I think, have 
the remotest idea of the presence of arsenic in their ornaments. If 
aware of their true nature, they would be satisfied with less brilliant 
colors, and reject, I have no doubt, these showy green articles, which 
have not even the merit of being, as far as coloring is concerned, a 
truthful imitation of nature. There being no longer a demand for 
them, the manufacture of poisonous wreaths and poisonous dresses 
would rapidly cease, as a matter of course." 

NOTE TO P. 260. 

Light, says the Builder, an English paper, well diffused over all 
parts of a dwelling, is essential to its being healthy. A dark house 
is not only gloomy and despairing, but is always unhealthy. We 
know, on high medical authority, that " the amount of diseases in 
light rooms, as compared with dark ones, is vastly less." Light ought 
to be diffused over the whole dwelling, so that no dark corners be left 
to invite a deposit of that which is untidy or offensive. Happily, the 
motive which in times past led so much to an exclusion of the light 
of heaven no longer exists. And though ages may pass ere the evils 
resulting from a vicious legislation are entirely swept away, yet the 
removal of the tax on windows, and of that on glass, must, amid much 
to discourage those who have long and zealously labored in the cause 
of sanitary amelioration, be regarded as most valuable concessions in 
its favor. The same paper remarks : Wood of an inferior quality, or 
unseasoned, when used in any part of a dwelling-house, is a false 
economy ; whilst the cracks and shrinkages caused thereby are often 
prejudicial to health. 

NOTES TO P. 314 AND 24. 

Living in Scotland in 1862. — The late census of Scotland shows 
that 7964 families — more than one per cent of all the 666,786 families 
of Scotland — were found living in single rooms which had no windows ; 
226,723 families were found living in one room, each with one or 
more windows, but often a mere apology for a window. Thirty-five 
per cent of all the families in Scotland — more than one third — are 
living in one room. A still larger number, thirty-seven per cent — 
nearly a quarter of a million of families — live in only two rooms, 
leaving only twenty-eight per cent living in houses with three or 
more rooms. This would have seemed incredible, if it had not been 
ascertained on actual inquiry. Glasgow is the greatest city in Scot- 
land. How is its population housed ? Only one family in four in all 



SLEEP. 343 

that vast city have as many as three rooms to live in ; 4024 families, 
with five persons in each family, have only one room to live in ; 2450 
families, with six persons in a family ; 1256 families, with seven per- 
sons in a family. 

There is one house to every six persons in the country. In New- 
York city there are thirteen persons to a dwelling, on the average. 
In Boston, about nine ; in New-Orleans, nearly seven ; in Philadelphia, 
seven, in 1862. 

Persons wakened up just as they are falling asleep, are sometimes 
not able to go to sleep again for hours, and the greater their efforts 
to do so, the less are they able to fall asleep again. In such cases, it 
is best to get up at once, wash the face and hands, and walk briskly 
about the room for ten or fifteen minutes, or engage in reading or 
writing for the same length of time. And as sound sleep is a favor- 
able omen in dangerous sickness, and mitigates suffering in all, the 
utmost care should always be taken to avoid breaking in upon the 
sleep of the sick when they are just falling into a doze ; and for the 
same reason, a sick patient should never be waked up to take medi- 
cine, or for any other purpose, unless by the express orders of the 
physician, or for some clear necessity. 

At other times, the sick, and also the well, may be accidentally 
waked up at a late hour in the night, and getting to thinking, may 
not be able to go to sleep again for an hour or more. The result is, 
they sleep that much later in the day. The same thing is apt to 
occur the next night, and the next, and is a clear loss of time. It 
can be broken up promptly, either by retiring two or three hours 
later, or by being waked up two or three hours earlier, and avoid 
sleeping a moment in the day-time. In this way, the • time for the 
usual waking will be slept through, and the privation of a bad habit 
will be entirely broken up the first night, and the person, thereafter, 
will sleep the night clear through. The inability to go to sleep, 
which annoys those who are well, can in every case perhaps be 
avoided, by avoiding sleep in the day-time, by exercising in the open 
air two or three hours more each day, or by curtailing the time of 
being in bed, which ought not to exceed eight hours for grown per- 
sons in health. 



INDEX TO SLEEP. 

PAGH 

Air Deadly, 11 

" Breathing Bad, 35 

" Stint of, : 51 

" Crowded Rooms, 57 

" Taints, 91 

" Noxious, 183 

" Bath,.. 185 

" Country, 219 

" Pure and Impure, 225 

" of Close Rooms, 247 

u of Chambers, 255 

" and Thought, 274 

Abodes of the Poor, 74 

Appetites Compared, 117 

Avoiding Temptation, 125 

Alcoholic Drinks, 179 

Andrews & Dixon's Grate, 305 

Black-Hole of Calcutta, 9, 41, 99 

Bodily Emanations, 69, 72 

Bad Habits, 145 

Burying under Churches, 243 

Breath of Life, 277 

Black Blood, 287 

Crowding, Effects of, 20, 23, 73, 87, 97, 249, 312 

Canary Bird, 26 

Convulsions of Children, , . . . . 25 

Capacity of Lungs, 27 



11. ESTDEX. 

PAGE 

Charcoal Fumes, 37, 95 

Chambers Vitiated, • . . . 55, 183 

Consumption and Dust, 63 

" and Close Rooms, 282 

Children's Fits, 25 

** Sleeping Together, 147 

Cottage and Hovel, 88 

Country Air, 219, 268 

Chemical Affinities, 291 

Deadly Emanations, 15 

Dust, 32, 59, 61, 63 

Debilitations, 141 

Doko Race, 207 

Dark Parlors, 262, 297 

Emanations, 15, 69, 93 

Electrical Influences, 108 

Eating, 166 

Excessive Child-Bearing, 280 

Franklin's Air-Bath, 185 

Force of Will, 197 

Fire on the Hearth, 303 

Furnaces, Andrews and Dixon's, 303 

Grotto del Cane, 17 

Griscom's Ventilation, 205 

Gas Burning, 239, 270 

Howard, John, ^ . . 44 

Human Effluvia, 69, 71 

Hovels and Cottages, 88 

Health Invigorated, 163 

Heart-Burn, i67 

Hamilton's House-Plan, 199 



INDEX. 111. 

PAGH 

Souses — Warming, 229, 307 

" Baker's Plan, 309 

Infant Convulsions, 25 

" Mortality, , 51 

" Sleeping, 133 

" Feeding, 137 

Inherited Infirmities, 65 

Instinct and Reason, 113 

Important Considerations, 128 

Infection, 159 

Invisible Impurities, 258 

In-Door Life, 267 

Kitchen Ventilation, ♦. 233 

Lungs Capacity, 27 

" Office of, 39 

11 Described, 2S6 

Londonderry Steamer, 97 

Light is Curative, 260 

Life and Blood, 279 

Low-Down Grate, 301 

Moderation, 112 

Marriage a Safeguard, 295 

National Hotel Disease, 13, 49 

Nursing at Night, 135 

Out-Door Life, 266 

Pontine Marches, 16 

Pure Chambers, 19 

Prison Horrors, 43 

Physiology, Books on, . , 149 

Papered Booms, 215 

Pernicious Instruments, 161 



IV. INDEX. 

PAGE 

Plans for Houses, 199 

Poisonous Rooms, 295 

Roominess and Health, 67 

Reason and Instinct, 113 

Ruined Youth, 143 

Second Naps 193 

Simoons, 31, 33 

Sunlight a Ventilator, 269 

Sun for Children, 264 

Sleeping Together, 180 

" with the Old, 5, 210 

11 with Consumptives, 109 

" Different Temperaments, 138 

" Children, 139 

" Soundly, Ill, 115 

ftick-Chambers 292 

Tenement Houses, 79 

Thames Tunnel, 93 

Town and Country, 268 

The Proposition Proven, 314 

Ventilation of Court Rooms, 46 

Randall's Island, 47 

" Griscom's, 205 

" Stables, 206 

" Kitchens, 229 

" Shops, 234 

u Longevity and, 245 

14 School-Rooms, 249 

u Chambers, 299 

" Sick-Rooms, 300 

Vitiated Rooms, 249 



INDEX TO HEALTH AND DISEASE. 



PAGK 

Apoplexy, 39 

"Alice," Our Little, 58 

Anodynes, 65, 235 

Anal Itching, 68 

Appetite, 97, 115 

Air-Passages, 155 

Astringents, 238 

Amateur Doctors, 255 

Action in Emergencies, 256 

Aches and Asthma, 13, 218, 258 

Apples Loosening, 74, 272 

Bowels, Regulation of, 25, 201, 237 

Bodily Adaptabilities, 229 

Bad Breath and Taste, 35, 36, 252 

Bronchitis, 130, 158 

Baths and Bathing 201 

Bridge of Sighs, 225 

Bleedings, 251 

Burns, 261 

Bread, Brown, . 76, 263, 267 

Binding Food, 272 

23*' 



294 INDEX. 

£AGB 

Constitutions Restored, 213 

Cornaro, Lewis, 14 

Combe, George and Andrew, 15 

Costiveness, 27, 33, 49, 61, 69, 77, 78, Si 

Cleanliness, 37, 238 

Children, Health of, 53, 273 

Cholera, 50, 58, 93 

Chilliness at Meals, 121 

Cambric Tea, 122 

Coffee, 124 

Clothing, Change of, 135 

Corns, 150 

Colds, 60, 154, 158, 165, 213, 228 

Catarrh, 158, 230 

Cooling off slowly, 163 

Chest, Development of, 181, 185 

Crying Curative, 217 

Chronic Laryngitis, 230 

Consumption, 188, 230 

Cough, 231 

Clerical Rules, 247 

Choosing a Physician, 249 

Cracked- Wheat, 76, 265 

Corn-Bread, 76, 267 

Corn-Dodger, 269 

Dyspepsia^ * 109, 113 

Drinking at Meals, 117 

Decline, *. 230 

Dress, How to, * 245 



IKBEX 295 

PAGE 

Exercise....... 81, 3 85, 193, 221,248 

Eating, 105 

Eyes, 244 

Epidemics, Conduct in, 247 

Eruptions, 253 

Emergencies, 25*7 

Food, , 7, 95, 103 

Fistula, 63 

Emits ...... 75, 132, 272, 280 

Flannel, 137 

Feet, Care of, 147 

Franklin's Death, 161 

Forresti, Professor, 224 

First Things, 254 

Fainting, 259 

Gymnasium, » 183 

Health Regained, 15 

Health lost, 19 

Health, Essentials of, 23 

Healthful Evacuations, 47 

Horseback Exercise, 189 

How to sleep well, 241 

Hoe-Cake, 268 

Hominy, 271 

Health of Children 273 

Instinct, 9, 97, 115 

Itchings, Anal, 68 



296 INDEX. 

PAGI 

Injections, 83 

Inverted Toe-Nails, 151 

Inflammation of the Lungs, 159 

Irritation, 232 

Life's Great End, 11 

Law and Lawyers, 22 

Late Dinners, Ill 

Laughing, 218 

Laziness and Fat, 220 

Loosening Food, 2*72 

Man and Beast, 41 

Morbid Appetite, 115 

Mystery of Life, 215 

Mucous Membrane, 232 

Nature resisted, 31 

Nature's Cure, 223^ 227, 233 

Nature's Materia Medica, 239 

Nasal Catarrh, 230 

Neuralgia, 34, 258 

Over-Fatigue, 191 

Patent Medicines, 55 

Physician, the Wise, 57, 249 

Piles, 63 

Pleurisy, 159 

Pneumonia, 159 

Public Speakers, 169 



INDEX. 297 

PAGE 

Premature Disablement, 177 

Pain, 207, 258 

Perspiration, 219 

Poisoning, 259 

Pone of Bread, 268 

Recapitulation, . . / 240 

Rules for Singing, Speaking, etc., 215 

Stooling, Mode of, 46 

Summer Complaint, c 59 

Suppers omitted, 107, 288 

Spring Diseases, 131 

Seasonable Food, 133 

Stockings, .' . 144 

Shoes, 145, 147, 165 

Spitting Blood, 159 

Speaking easily, 179 

Sleep, 199, 241, 248 

Spectacles, 243 

Study, Best Time for, 243, 248 

Scalds, 261 

Scours, 272 

Taking Medicine, 79 

Toasted Bread, 107 

Tea, 124 

Tonics, 127 

Toe-Nails inverted, 151 

Throat- Ail, 230 



298 ISTDEX. 

PAGE 

Travelling, . . , 247 

Teeth, 250 

Urination, 51, 218 

Visiting Healthy, 99 

Voice Organs, 157, 111 

Virginia Corn-Bread, 269 

Washington's Last Prayer, 228 

Yeast, 264 



INDEX TO CONSUMPTION. 



PAOK 

Appetite of Nature 89 

Arkansas Hunter, P 117 

Air and Exercise. . , . 172 

Asthma 239 

Alcohol Effects 245 

Bad Colds 31,77 

Bronchitis 47,50,239 

Blood Purified 59,248 

Bowels Regulated 162 

Brandy Drinking 245 

Braces 250 

Consumption Described 5,51 

" delusive 8 

" not painless 10 

" causes of 18 

" localities 28,253 

" liabilities 39 

" its nature 46 

" curable 77,202 

" commencing 155 

" seeds deposited 243 

" communicable 155 

Cough 12,80,93,248 

Croup • . . . 47,49 



274 INDEX. 

PAGE 

Chronic Laryngitis 48 

Cluster Doctrine * 76 

Canada Case 118 

Cheesy Particles 157 

Drains 170 

Eruptions 44 

Earliest Symptoms 81,90 

Exercise 132,177,217 

" various 1 82,244 

Expectoration 156 

Eating and Exercise 211 

Eating, Rules for I 84 

Fatigue 8 ? 

Gregg's Case H? 

Great Mistake 171 

Hereditariness 29 

Hectic 158 

Health Rules 184 

Horseback Exercise 244 

Impure Air 

Impure Blood £3,253 

Inhalation 

Lacing, Tight 21 

Laryngitis 

Localities 28,253 

Liquors, not curative 245 



index. 275 

PAGE 

Medicated Inhalation 221 

Norcom's Case 102 

Night Sweats 159 

Nitrate Silver 246 

Newspaper Dereliction 253 

Occupation in Consumption 38 

Out-Door Activities 102,163 

Over Exercise 175 

Pulse < 81 ,90 

Porter Drinking 245 

Respirator, the best 181 

Symptom of Consumption 36,138 

Spitting Blood 50,55,185,194 

Short Breath 85,240 

Spirometer 88,139 

Summer Complaint 100 

Sea Voyage 151 

Sea Shore 100,153 

Stokes Dr., Case. 112 

Spinal Disease 128 

Self-Treatment 247 

Self 170 

Sydenham's Opinion 244 

Southern Climate 

Seed Sown 91 

Tight Lacing 21 

Throat Ail 47 



276 INDEX. 

PAGE 

Tubercle 54 

Tickling Cough 93 

Tonics 160 

Tonsils 157,167 

Variety of Exercise 244 



INDEX TO BRONCHITIS. 



PAGE 

Air and Health 78 

Author's Opinion 142, 201, 249, 345 

Asthma, Perpetual ... 36 

" Common 257 

" Case of 3J5 

Bronchitis, what is it 1 6 

" Symptoms 9 

J* how acquired 36 

' ; Philosophy of 43 

" Defined 44 

" Historyof 53 

Bad Habits of the Young 217, 299 

Breathing, Remarks on 270 

Brandy and Throat Disease 19, 186, 341 

Baths and Bathing 68, 229, 295 

Boarding-School Education. . .298, 329 
Boston Statistics of Consumption. 301 



Consumption, what is it? . 
" Symptoms. 



how acquired 

Philosophy of 

44 History 

" Definition 

" Communicability.. . 

" Curability 98, 

44 Threatened 

44 Real, Arrested .... 

" Spurious 

" Principles of Cure 

65, 220, 
11 Early Indications . . 

Contents of Lungs 

" Heart 

Congestion Described 

Capillary Circulation 

Cell Development 

Chill and Fever 96,111, 

Climate 

Cancer 269, 

Clerical Health 

Clerks 

Croup 

Children, Training of 

44 Precocious 

44 and Study 

44 Health of 

CoHgh 90,93,201, 

" how produced 

Cod-liver Oil 



10 
35 
46 

54 
61 
93 
32? 
203 
205 
211 

242 
273 
78 
79 
43 
41 
67 
15S 
145 
278 
254 
290 
231 
333 
326 
328 
324 
223 
306 
241 



PAGE 

Clergymen, Chapter to 243 

* 4 how diseased 247 

44 Cases of, 14. 16, 20. 23, 33, 

51, 154, 182, 240 

Cities, Mortality of 335 

Country, 44 336 

Dangerous Delays 36 

44 Exposures 29 

Diarrhoea 97 

Danger of Cutting Tonsils 309 

Disease, Return of Prevented . . 17, 338 

44 Not by Medicine 318 

Debilitating Indulgences 218, 299 

Death, Manner of 86 

44 Edward Irving 5 

44 Washington 227 

44 Whitfield 258 

" Franklin 316 

44 Combe 125 

" Maffitt 250 

Editors, Suggestions to 138 

Exposures, Dangerous 29 

Expectoration 96 

Edwards' Jonathan, Oratory 253 

Fever and Ague, of 95, 318 

Frail and Feeble Persons 126 

" Children, Treatment of 334 

Food, Tables of 2«4 

44 Amount Needed Daily. . 186, 289 

Features, Hereditary 278 

Female Boarding Schools. . . . 298, 329 
Franklin's Death 316 

Growth, Manner of 69 

Heart, Contents of 79 

44 Disease and Death 248 

How to Remain Cured 126 

Home and Its Advantages 152 

Health, a Talent 246 

44 a Duty 267 

High Livers 267 

Inflammation Described 43 

Imprisonment, Long 77 

Lawyers. Cases of 19, 21, 162 

Lungs Described 48 



382 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Lungs, contents of 78 

Last Words 88 

Lake-shore Situations 159 

Life, Average Duration of 300 

Mistaken Patients 171, 182, 190 

Measures, Table of 290 

Medical Science, Value of . . . 298, 343 

Merchants, Cases of, 16, 24, 150, 178, 

207, 235, 240, 243 

Mortality of Cities 335 

Nitrate of Silver 237 

New York City Mortality 336 

Over Feeding 68 

Oxygen, Effects of Breathing .... 71 

Over-tasking the Brain 329 

Object of the Book,. .142, 302, 303, 339 

Parallels 65 

Principles of Cure 63, 65, 220, 225 

Phosphate of Lime 71 

Prairie Situations 159 

Pulse 270 

Patent Medicines 191, 302, 341 

Recipes 291 

Respiration 305 

Relapses, how occasioned 310 

Recapitulation 345 

Spirometry.... 47, 81, 83, 166, 195, 272 

Smoking, Effects on Throat 18 

Shortness of Breath 306 

Small-pox 324 

SeaShore 158 

Sea Voyages 159 

Spitting Blood 94 

Starvation, Suicide by 72 

Sick Headache 24 

Stay at Home to Die 152 

Souse Candies poisonous 342 



PAGB 

Symptoms, Deceptive 177 

• 4t Suspicious 218 

" Enumerated- 262 

" of Dyspepsia 321 

Throat- Ail, what is it ? 5 

" Symptoms 7 

" how acquired 11 

" Philosophy 40 

• " History 48 

" Diseases 226 

" First Symptoms 255 

" Neglected, results of. . 256 

Tables of Measure 290 

Food 284 

" Mortality 335 

Tobacco, Effects of 17 

Tubercles, how formed 46 

" Diseases of, Classified. 266 

11 Not Necessarily Fatal 268 

" Clusters of 274 

Tendencies of the Times 145 

Treatment of Unseen Cases 2(55 

Theological Students 243 

Tonsils, Danger of Cutting 309 

Unseen Cases Treated 265 

" Unwell" 312 

Voice Organs Described 42 

Vaccination 323 

Women, Cases of, 26, 171, 173, 203, 
212, 250, 311, 312 

" Few Healthy 325 

Washington at Morristown 187 

Death of 227 

Whitfield's Oratory 252 

Death 258 

Weakly Children 333 

Young, City Education of 298 

Young Ladies Education 3SS 



INDEX 

to 

TWO HUNDRED HEALTH TRACTS. 



Air and Sunshine, 

Apples, 

Antidotes of Poisons, 

Burying Alive, 

Bites, 

Bathing, 

Beards, 

Back Bone, 

Beauty a Medicine, 

Baldness, 

Burns, 

Bilious Diarrhea, 

Bread, 

Balm of Gilead, 

Corns and Shoes, 

Costiveness, 

Colds Cured, 
" Prevented, 
" Neglected, 
" Catching, 

Catarrh, 

Checking Perspira- 
tion, 

Centenarian, 

Consumption, 

Coal Fires, 

Cute Th 

Coffee, 

Children at School, 

Cures, 

Clothing Changed, 

Cholera, 

Clergymen, 

Cancer, 

Corn Bread, 

Children, 

Convenient Knowl- 
edge, 

Charms, 



Curiosities of Eating, 

Child Bearing, 

Disease, Causes of, 

Drunkenness, 

Disease Avoided, 

Dyspepsia, 

Drinking, 

Diet for Invalids, 

Deafness, 
'Debt, 

Duration of Life, 

Dying Easily, 

Drowning, 

Dieting, 

Diphtheria, 

Diarrhea, 

Dysentery, 

Disinfectants, 

Death Bate, 

Deranged, 

Erect Position, 
Erysipelas, 
Eyes, 

Escape, Eire, 
Eating, 
Exercise, 
■ Emanations, 
Eating Economically, 
Fruits in Summer, 
Fifteen Follies, 
Fireplaces, 
Flannel Wearing, 
Fifth Avenue Sights, 
Fire Escape, 
Feet, Cold, 
Growing Beautiful, 
Greed of Gold, 
Genius, its Yices, 
Great Eaters, 



Gruels and Soups, 

Hair, 

Health without Med- 
icine, 

Healthful Observan- 
ces, 

Health Essentials, 

Hydrophobia, 

Headache, 

Health Theories, 

Habit, 

Housekeeping, 

Inconsiderations, 

Ice, its Uses, 

Inverted Toe-Nail, 

Insanity, 

In the Mind, 

Kindness Rewarded, 

Law of Love, 

Life Wasted, 

Loose Bowels, 

Leaving Home, 
Logic Run Mad, 
Measles, 

Medicine, Taking, 
Music Healthful, 
Milk, 
Miasm, 
Marriage, 
Morning Prayer, 
Month Malign, 
Medical Items, 
Mental Ailments, 
Memories, 
Nine Nevers, 
Nothing but a Cold, 
Neuralgia, 
Nervous Sufferers, 
New Dispensary, 



INDEX TO TWO HUNDRED HEALTH TRACTS. 



Nursing, 
One Aero, 
One by One, 
Obscure Diseases, 
Poultices, 
Precautions, 
Presence of Mind, 
Premonitions, 
Private Things, 
Physiological Aphor- 
isms, 
Pain, 

Perspiration Checked, 
Placeless, The, 
Preserves, 
Parental Training, 
Prayer, The Morning 
Potatoes, 
Poisons, 
Philosophy, 
Physiological Items, 
Posture in Worship, 
Rheumatism, 
Read and Heed, 
Soups and Gruels, 



Resignations, 

Sitting Erect, 

Shoes, 

Sour Stomach, 

Sleeping, 

Stooling, 

Skating, 

Suppers, Light, 

Summering, 

Scalds and Burns, 

Serenity, 

Sores, 

Small-Pox, 

Soldiers, 

Spot, The One, 

Specifics, 

Spring-Time, 

Summer Drinks, 

Sabbath, 

Saving Ministers, 

Sickness not Cause 

less, 
Sayre, the Banker, 
Summer Mortality, 
Stammerino', 



School-Children, 

Study, Where to, 

Traveling Hints, 

The Three P's, 

Teeth, 

The Placeless, 

Urination, 

Valuable Knowledge, 
Vaccination, 
Ventilation, 
Vermin, Household, 
Vices of Genius, 
Winter Rules, 
Walking, 
Warnings, 
Woman's Beauty, 
Whitlow, 
Woolen Clothing, 
Whitewashes, 
Worth Remember- 
ing, > 
Worship, Religious, 
Weather Signs, 
When Began We ? 
Weather and Wealth, 



Price $1.75. By Mail, prepaid, $2. 

ADDRESS, 

"HALL'S JOURNAL OP HEALTH," New- York; 



4 



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